Yellowstone 5¢ Stamp. Circa 1934

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

5¢ stamp, blue, Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

The Yellowstone stamp was issued on July 30, 1934, at post offices in Yellowstone National Park and Washington, DC, featuring a photograph by Jack Ellis Haynes proprietor of the Haynes Photo Studios in located in Yellowstone. The image shows an erupting Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park.

The vertical five-cent stamp is printed with blue ink and required four printing plates to print 35 million stamps.

Yellowstone is noted for its wide variety of thermal activity—geysers, hot springs, and bubbling mud pools, and for the spectacular Upper and Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. The nation's first national park, Yellowstone was established in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana in 1872.

1934 National Park Stamps

The U.S. Interior Department designated 1934 as National Parks Year. The US Postal Service issued a series of 10 stamps to promote national parks and encourage domestic tourism. The stamps were the first American commemoratives that were not connected to a historical event, technological achievement, or exposition — including the first US postage stamp designed by a woman.

Described as "the greatest campaign ever launched by the federal government to promote the scenic wonders of the United States," the national park stamps became one of the most recognized series of US stamps. Despite being in the middle of the Great Depression, over one billion of the 10 national park stamps were printed in under two years.

This stamp series along with the WPA Posters of the time both personified the "See America First" campaign, where the message evoked local travel as patriotic and a cornerstone of national identity.