August 2018 - Sneak Peek

3¢ DEVILS TOWER NATIONAL MONUMENT
COMMEMORATIVE STAMP
Date of issue: September 24, 1955
Catalogue numbers: Scott 1084
Designer: Charles Ransom Chickering
Vignette engraver: Arthur W. Dintaman
Frame engraver: Robert Joseph Jones
Letter engraver: Robert Joseph Jones
Color: Violet (Scott); purple (Post Office Department)
Format: Electric eye plates of 200 divided into 4 post
office panes of 50 by horizontal gutters - arranged 10
horizontally by 5 vertically
Perforation: 10.5 by 11
Size: 0.84 of an inch by 1.44 inches (21.34mm x 36.58mm)
Printing: Bureau of Engraving and Printing using the
new Experimental Bi-Color Rotary Press (EXBIROW)
popularly called the Huck Press; dry intaglio printing
Anomalies: full gutter within block of four
Quantity issued: 118,180,000
First-day site: Devils Tower, Wyoming
First-day covers serviced: 285,090
PLATE NUMBER REPORT
Plate. No. Impressions Printed
25500 165,011 August 29, 1956
25501 165,013 August 29, 1956
25502 164,893 August 31, 1956
25503 164,894 August 31, 1956
ral Bridges (Utah); and in 1909 to Navajo (Arizona), Oregon
Caves (Oregon), and Salinas Pueblo Missions (New Mexico).
Once the Act was in force, Wyoming’s congressman-atlarge,
Franklin Wheeler Mondell (1860-1939), a local prospector
from the northeast part of the state, whose primary
interest at the time was public land issues, introduced a bill
to make the tower the first national monument. Due to his
influence, on the following September 24 Roosevelt declared
the site the first national monument. It encompassed 1,347
acres (545 hectares) as the first of these protected sites. In
1916, it was put under the jurisdiction of the newly created
National Park Service.
Over the years climbing the Devils Tower became an increasingly
popular pastime. The first formal ascent occurred
on July 4, 1893, by two local ranchers, William Rogers and
Willard Ripley. They completed the climb after constructing
a ladder of wooden pegs driven into cracks in the rock face.
A few of these wooden pegs are still intact and are visible on
the tower. Lizzie Rogers, Williams’ wife, was the first woman
to reach the summit in 1895. The most famous for climbing
the tower using modern techniques was Fritz Wiessner, accompanied
by William P. House and Lawrence Coveney on
June 29, 1937. The first all-female team – Jan Conn and Jane
Showacre – climbed the summit in 1952.
On October 1, 1941, George Hopkins parachuted onto
Devils Tower, without permission, as a publicity stunt resulting
from a bet. He had intended to descend the summit by
a rope, which never arrived. He was rescued after a week at
great cost when a Dartmouth student traveled cross-country
to fetch him down. By the 1950s, hundreds of climbers scaled
the sheer rock walls of Devils Tower each summer. The number
of visitors reached 100,919 in 1954.
We come full circle back to Native Americans. During the
1950s, with the rising crescendo of demands for civil rights
and racial equality, Native American communities had not
yet to become as vocal as they were to be in subsequent years.
The first stirrings of such a movement could be detected in
demands that Devils Tower be protected against rock climbers,
who in the eyes of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Kiowa, desecrated
an important religious site. Years of resentment and
rancor against the climbers and what were regarded as their
sacrilegious activities were beginning to be heard. Climbers
countered by arguing that their “connection to the tower is
also a spiritual one.” A settlement, including changing the
name of the monument to something less obnoxious to the
ears of Native American ears, is still pending.
And then there are mashed potatoes! The uniqueness and
the visual strength of Devils Tower likely received its greatest
exposure with the 1977 release of the Stephen Spielberg motion
picture, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the film,
characters are drawn to the magnificent structure, which
eventually becomes a landing area for aliens. In one memorable
scene, his family watches in silent awe as actor Richard
Dreyfuss builds a model of Devils Tower out of a huge plate
of mashed potatoes, using his fork to create the tower’s striations.
“This means something; it’s important,” Dreyfuss utters
through tears. (See sidebar.)
First-day Ceremony
Prior to the first-day ceremony, events were held, starting
in June. They took place at towns like Belle Fourche, Hulett,
Deadwood, Sundance, Lead, Gillette, Newcastle and Spearfish.
The main pre-ceremony event was the Pioneers Picnic
held at the foot of Devils Tower with Don Howe presiding.
It featured concerts by local bands and speeches delivered by
McIntyre and Howard Baker.
As part of the build-up to the big day, a special mountaineers’
week occurred between July 14 and 22. Army and
overseas climbing teams were featured.
On the Saturday and Sunday just before the first-day ceremony,
F.Z. Owen, the female postmaster of the tiny Dev-
AUGUST 2018 / AMERICAN PHILATELIST 775