Did you find this in Michigan? There was a McIntosh Bros, a Milwaukee based company who built railroads. They did some work in other states, along with Michigan. I found this reference in the bio. of a man who worked as their "store keeper" - which I suppose could mean company supplies and such, but it also seems possible that their had a company store available for their workers and these tokens could have been used for that purpose.
This bio of one of the McIntosh founders indicates they had "thousands of workers."
glengarryhistoricalsociety.com
McIntosh, Donald Alexander
(20 Sept. 1843-18 Dec. 1915), contractor. (Donald A. McIntosh) Born at St. Andrew’s, Stormont County.
Appleton’s Cyclopaedia says simply that he was born “near Glengarry, Ont., Canada.” Parents: Alexander McIntosh and his wife Janet MacDonald. He was apparently of U E Loyalist descent.
He grew up on his parents’ farm, and attended the local school. As young men, he and his younger brother James A. McIntosh settled in the United States, though before leaving Canada they probably got some experience of railway construction work on the Grand Trunk. With their base at Milwaukee, they “began taking subsidiary contracts for the building of short lines of railroad.”
They advanced to become prominent railway builders, constructing lines in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana and the Dakotas. The division of labour between the brothers was that James handled the office work, while Donald supervised the men in the field, at times having “under his personal direction thousands of workers, mobilized and sent to him by his brother from the home office.” When the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Co. line was built from the Missouri River to Puget Sound, beginning about 1906, the McIntosh brothers were in charge of building the whole section of more than 700 miles between the Missouri River and Butte, Montana. “After finishing this gigantic task the two brothers entered into other contracts covering important changes of line and second-track work, but upon their completion, in 1910, they quietly closed their business affairs and retired.”
