Washington Representative Albert Johnson wanted a coin for Fort Vancouver's centennial celebrations, but was persuaded to accept a medal instead.

But when another congressman was successful in amending a coinage bill to add a commemorative, Johnson tacked on language authorizing a coin for Fort Vancouver.

The coins were flown from the San Francisco Mint, where they were struck, to Washington state by airplane as a publicity stunt.

With the coming of American rule in 1846, McLoughlin resigned from the Hudson's Bay Company, going to live at Oregon City, which he had founded,[2] and became its mayor in 1851, two years after becoming a U.S. citizen.

[6] In May 1924, he and Senator Wesley Jones, also of Washington state, introduced legislation in their houses of Congress for a half dollar commemorating the centennial of Fort Vancouver.

[7] Indiana Representative Albert Vestal, the chairman of the House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, met with Johnson and persuaded him to introduce a bill for a medal instead.

Vestal reasoned that the Treasury Department was opposing more commemorative coin issues, as these were finding their way into circulation and confusing the public.

The Minority Leader, Democratic Congressman Finis J. Garrett of Tennessee, asked why the committee had not set the rule before considering the Vermont bill, and Vestal admitted it was hard to answer.

[16] Once the coin had been approved by Congress, the Centennial Corporation submitted plaster models by an unknown artist, whose initials (SB) appeared on the obverse.

They were sent to the Commission of Fine Arts, charged by a 1921 executive order by President Warren G. Harding with rendering advisory opinions regarding public artworks, including coins.

The corporation instead hired the commission's second choice, Laura Gardin Fraser, an experienced designer of commemorative coins.

He was enthusiastic, and sent a letter to commission chairman Charles Moore to that effect, writing "the whole coin looks very interesting to me, and I think is mighty good.

Numismatists have debated whether the absence of a mint mark was intentional; it is the only commemorative coin issue struck at Denver or San Francisco that lacks one.

[4] Anthony Swiatek and Walter Breen, in their 1988 book on commemorative coins, describe Fraser's design as "better than anything [Chester] Beach could have come up with".

[21] Only 50,000 of the authorized mintage of 300,000 were coined, plus 28 pieces intended to be sent to Philadelphia to be available for inspection and testing at the 1926 meeting of the annual Assay Commission.

[24] According to Swiatek and Breen, "given the remoteness and exclusively local nature of the celebration, it is surprising that as many as fourteen thousand coins were sold.

Once the theft was realized, the Province of Manitoba filed suit to recover the remaining coins, but a settlement allowed the dealer to retain them.

[25] The coins quickly commanded a premium after their 1925 issue due to their scarcity, rising to $10 by 1928 before falling back to $7 by 1930, in uncirculated condition.