| Top Hat Cafe | Good for | 5 cents | in trade | token |
| Dutchman's | Good for | 5 cents | in trade | tokens |
| Dutchman's | Good for | 5 cents | in trade (Cup) | |
| H. P. Andrews | Good for | 5 cents | in merchandise | tokens |
| H. P. Andrews | Good for | 10 cents | in merchandise | |
| H. P. Andrews | Good for | 25 cents | in merchandise | |
| H. P. Andrews | Good for | 50 cents | in merchandise | |
| Prust & Boehne | Good for | 10 cents | in merchandise | tokens |
| Gus & Squiz | Good for | 5 cents | in trade ♦ | tokens |
| Gus & Squiz | Good for | $1.00 | in trade | |
| Rosenberg & Lenz | Good for | 5 cents | in trade | token |
| L. R. Simon | Good for | 5 cents | in trade | token |
| Ceylon Post #529 | Good for | 35 cents | in trade | token |
| Ceylon Dairy | Milk Bottle | Stopper | ||
| Ceylon Legion Post #529 | Good for | 55 cents | in trade | token |
| Buke's Place | Good for | One Drink | token | |
| Legends II | One Drink | token | ||
I first came across this place in 1997 November when my
son searching an encyclopedia on cdrom with keyword Ceylon, brought
up the page that said US vice president
Walter Mondale
was born in Ceylon.
I sent E-mail to four residents I found listed under Ceylon MN and had
this illuminating correspondence with
Gerald Rosenberg who said I quote
"The railroad came through this part of Minnesota in 1899, and that
is when the town was born. At that time, legend has it, there was a
gathering in a local general store, were they were trying to pick out
a name for their new settlement. Someone saw a box of Tea that was
from "Ceylon", and suggested that as a name. Apparently the name was
adopted!
Ceylon has been my address for all my fifty some years, except
for a couple when I was in the US military. When I was a boy, it was
a very busy town, with the population of something just over 500
souls. As I write this, about the only thing still active in town is
the bank, a grocery story, grain terminal, post office, plus a couple
other small businesses. The High School, just this summer has been
torn down, because of the lack of students. Sad to lose - many fond
memories there!"
According to the
history
In the early days Ceylon was known as the
"Biggest Little Town in Minnesota"
The population was growing in this tight knit little boom town. Many
businesses prospered. Two hardware stores, two pool halls, a drug
store, hotel, hatchery, clothing stores, a garage, barber-shops a
blacksmith shop, harness shop ...
Farm families came to town to shop on Wednesday and Saturday nights to
sell their produce and to buy their week's supply of groceries. The
kids went to the movie theater to watch cowboy shows and the women
visited in the cafe and grocery stores while the men went across the
street.
It is reported,
by the grapevine, that Ceylon hosted illicit gambling games during
this time including card games; dice, punch-boards, and one-armed-bandits.
Many of the games were played on Saturday nights. Several out of town
brothers wore their suits under their coveralls. In the wee small
hours of the morning when the game was over, they skinned out of their
coveralls and attended early morning mass before going home.
Problems were on going for the gamblers, with too many raids
taking place at the pool-hall and hotel. In 1910 there are 4 saloons,
which temperance people of Ceylon were anxious to put out of business.
Snow in Ceylon 1918
| State Bank of Ceylon
|
|
Ceylon celebrated its centenary in 2000 July and had a
website
with a lot of historical images of the place which went off-line.
Now linked to an almost complete copy I have put back online.
Ceylon MN is few miles south of interstate 90 (exit 93 route 263) and
just north of the Iowa border. | 
|
The land area is 0.65 square miles.
In 2000 the population was 413 with 189 housing units, down from
461 in 200 units in 1990.
In 2005 September I did a road trip to four of the
five places in USA named Ceylon.
Among them Ceylon MN is the largest and the only place to have it's
own Zipcode 56121.
I thank Gerald Rosenberg for the history of Ceylon MN, and sending me a copy of the Ceylon Centennial website on CDROM.
From the only restaurant listed on the Internet a ballpoint Pen COMPLIMENT'S OF
The nine tokens listed above in bold from the Lakdiva collection, have been given on Loan to the Ceylon Area Historical Society and have been on display at their Museum in Ceylon Mn subsequent to my visit in 2005 September.
I am looking for any Tokens from Ceylon MN - If you have any that are unlisted please E-mail with detailed description and an image.
tokencatlog.com now has probably a fairly comprehensive
Listing
of 31 different Ceylon MN Tokens
of which 29 have images some of which were contributed by lakdiva.
tokenCatalog.com now has more than 3 times as many "Good For" tokens
as I was told existed, both for Minnesota as well as Ceylon Mn, 18
years ago when I got my first Ceylon Mn token in 2001 August.
See also Ceylon Minnesota Banknotes
This webpage on Americana hosted by Lakdiva : a website for Coins and BankNotes including Coffee Tokens of Ceylon (SriLanka).