6/1/2008:
The Trans-Mississippi Exposition opened in Omaha, Nebraska on this day in 1898. In commemoration, the US Post Office Department issued a set of nine stamps, including the 2-cent “Farming in the West” stamp. The image for the “Farming in the West” stamp had been reproduced from a photograph taken by John R. Hamlin in 1888 of the Chaffee Farm, a bonanza farm in Cass County, North Dakota.
The 1898 copper red stamp depicted a plowing scene from the Chaffee Farm, complete with sixty-one horses and their drivers, including Evan Nybakken, the driver in the foreground with his left hand up as if waving, although he was actually grabbing his hat so that it wouldn’t blow away.
To see a copy of the 1898 “Farming in the West” stamp, visit Arago, the online database of the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum.
Written by Christina Sunwall
Sources:
"Arago", National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution http://www.arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=8&cmd=1 (accessed 2008).
Piper, Marion J. Dakota Portraits: A Sentimental Journal of Pictorial History. Mohall, ND, 1964.
Tim Hoheisel, Andrew R. Nielsen. Cass County Images of America. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.