Description
What it is
This magnet reproduces one of the 14 original WPA national park posters, restored and reissued by Ranger Doug’s Enterprises. Doug Leen is a former National Park Service ranger who began tracking down surviving WPA park posters in 1971 and, in 1992, started restoring the designs and reproducing them using traditional silk-screen methods and, more recently, printed merchandise like this magnet line.
About the Wind Cave design
The Wind Cave poster survived only in black-and-white period photography. Ranger Doug’s team reconstructed the color palette from park brochures of the same era, so the colors here are an educated reconstruction rather than a scan of a surviving color print. The artwork centers on the original cave entrance, the small opening where brothers Tom and Jesse Bingham heard wind whistling out of the ground in 1881.
About the park
Wind Cave became the seventh national park in the United States on January 9, 1903, and was the first national park established to protect a cave. Surveyors have mapped about 161 miles of passage, and the cave holds an estimated 95% of the world’s known boxwork, the honeycomb calcite fins found in this density nowhere else. Above ground, the park protects mixed-grass prairie and a free-roaming bison herd descended from 14 animals brought from the Bronx Zoo in 1913.
Specifications
- Dimensions: 2.5″ x 3.5″, portrait orientation
- Weight: 1.5 oz
- Construction: button magnet, mylar face over a metal back
- Country of origin: United States (printed at Purebuttons, Ohio)
Who picks this up
It is a small, specific souvenir for someone leaving a Wind Cave tour, and a find for collectors who recognize the WPA park-poster designs. The Wind Cave image is harder to come by than the better-known Yellowstone or Grand Canyon pieces.
Frequently asked questions
What size is the magnet?
2.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall.
How strong is it?
A button magnet this size holds well on a refrigerator door, filing cabinet, or steel locker. It is not rated for industrial use.
Does buying this support the park?
BHPFA is the official nonprofit partner of Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Scotts Bluff National Monument, and Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, as well as the Black Hills National Forest and Nebraska National Forests & Grasslands. Proceeds from every purchase support education programs, conservation projects, and visitor services at these sites.
