The original facilities which minted silver dollars have been turned into tourist attractions in the small town we visited last summer. They were very old and they also provided a good amount of history for the tourists. Apparently there were some very unstable times during certain ears and the silver dollar actually became the symbol of a divided country at one point. Since we were not from there it was all new to us, but still quite interesting. The troubles had to do with politics and each side decided to make their own versions of official currency. In those days they had not invented paper money, and since the coins were so heavy when carried in bulk they made some fairly large denominations. We saw 50 dollar silver coins all the way down to 5 dollar ones. I think they used some other metal for the smaller denominations under the 5 dollar mark. This was all around a very interesting visit, but the history sure was a lot different than anything we could have expected ahead of time. Actually the brochures we received during the planning phase of the trip did mention that this was the most popular highlight among the tourists and we were pleased with it too.