Thursday, June 12, 2008

Marvelous engineering

The dam stamps are finally available!

The 2008 Express Mail and Priority Mail stamps, featuring the Hoover Dam and Mount Rushmore go on sale today.

The Hoover Dam, subject of the new Express Mail stamp, is the nation’s tallest concrete dam and was the tallest dam ever built when completed in the mid-1930s.

The Priority Mail stamp features an illustration of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Completed in 1941, the monument features large-scale sculptures of four American presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. (Have I ever told you that I, ahem, personally knew two of these rock heads?)
As the story goes, Doane Robinson, the secretary of the South Dakota State Historical Society, developed the idea for the sculpture during the 1920s. Robinson contacted sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, who selected Mount Rushmore. Borglum died before he was able to finish the monument, which was later completed by his son.

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