Dollar

In the yesteryears Dollar was renowned as an industrial area and attempts were made in the 18th century to exploit the mineral resources deposited in the area, but the attempts were foiled owing to the lack of economic significance. The textile industry played a vital role in the town’s economy. Now Dollar has converted itself into a residential area.

The town is now largely a dormitory community for people who work in Stirling and the surrounding areas including Glasgow and Edinburgh. Because of the relative success of its fee-paying school Dollar Academy and its tranquil environment, the town draws young and reasonably well-off families, giving it a slightly different character from the other Hillfoots Villages.

In 1975 Dollar was included in the World Sound Scape Project, where recordings of the ambiance of everyday life around the world are recorded. Dollar was one of the places selected for recording. That project was repeated in 2000, as part of a Finnish project called Acoustic Environments in Change. Dollar share its boundary with the French town of La Ville Aux Dames, which lies just outside Tours in the Loire Valley

Many prominent personalities were brought up and they drew their inspiration from the Dollar town. It was the home town of Scottish sinologist James Legge, the translator of The Chinese Classics. The Chinese scholar Wang Tao lived in Dollar from 1870-1872 and he wrote two travel notes: "Wondering in the Rambling Park" and "Touring the Mountain in Dollar" in his book "Jottings from Carefree Travel". In the late 1990's, Michael Kulas and Saul Davies, musicians in the English rock group James also resided and worked out of the old Tea House Cottage, now known as Brewlands, next to Castle Campbell.

The well renowned Dollar Academy was founded in 1818 with the contribution from Captain John McNabb, a Dollar native who had allegedly made his fortune in the slave trade. The inventor of the vacuum flask, James Dewar, was a pupil of this academy. The noted Esperantist William Auld, nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, lived in Dollar until his death in 2006. The painter J. M. W. Turner visited Dollar and made sketches in the glen. BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston was educated at Dollar Academy. The Scottish author Iain Banks studied at the nearby University of Stirling and, in an interview for the South Bank Show in 1997 spoke about using the landscape above Dollar as inspiration for his novels.

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