SAN ANTONIO -- John Hancock's John Hancock was found on a lottery ticket issued 11 years earlier than the Declaration of Independence, the document that made his name synonymous with a person's signature.
George Washington bought lottery tickets.
Benjamin Franklin once sold them.
A lottery helped support the first American colonists in Jamestown; another was used to finance the Revolutionary War.
The Virginia Legislature in 1826 authorized a lottery to pay the bills of Thomas Jefferson, who was 83 and destitute at the time. But he died before the lottery could commence.
Lotteries have been legal only for the past 25 years in this century, but already 32 states and the District of Columbia are operating them. Texas is not one of them.
'I didn't really think there was so much dependence on lotteries in the early days of this country,' said Cecilia Steinfeldt, a curator at the Witte Museum in San Antonio.
Steinfeldt is in charge of an exhibit on lotteries, 'The Legacy of Lotteries: Romance and Revenues,' now on display at the Witte Museum.
Elaborately crafted lottery tickets dating back to the 1700s are part of the exhibit from the Bally Collection, which consists of 10,000 tickets, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, account records, diary entries and other pieces.
