Description
What it is
This is the Wind Cave National Park design from Ranger Doug’s WPA park-poster series, sold as a full-size hand-pulled serigraph. It reproduces one of the 14 original posters the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project produced for national parks between 1938 and 1941 before WWII shut the program down. Fewer than 100 copies of the Wind Cave design were ever printed, and no original has turned up, so this print is a restoration rather than a scan of a surviving copy.
About the design
The “Take a cave trip through Wind Cave” artwork centers on the original cave entrance, a small opening framed in stone, with the cave-temperature note (47 degrees winter and summer, open all year) in the corner and a herd of bison on the prairie below. Because the Wind Cave poster survived only in black-and-white archival photography, Doug Leen worked from a crude photo in the National Park Service archives at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, redrawing roughly 100 screens by hand over five years. The colors here are estimated from period park brochures.
About Ranger Doug
Doug Leen is a former Grand Teton climbing ranger and retired Seattle dentist who has spent decades tracking down the lost WPA park posters. In 1971 he rescued a Grand Teton print headed for a park burn pile, and in 1993 he started Ranger Doug’s Enterprises to reproduce the complete set. Every poster is hand-pulled using the silkscreen process, the same method the original WPA artists used; these are not digital or offset reproductions.
About the park
Wind Cave became the seventh national park in the United States in 1903 and was the first national park established to protect a cave. It holds an estimated 95% of the world’s known boxwork, the rare honeycomb-patterned calcite fins, across about 161 miles of surveyed passage. Above ground the park protects mixed-grass prairie and a free-roaming bison herd, in the southern Black Hills of South Dakota about 11 miles north of Hot Springs.
Specifications
- Image size: 13 1/2″ x 18 1/8″
- Border: varies by edition (measure before ordering a frame)
- Printing method: hand-pulled silkscreen (serigraph)
- Made in: USA (Ranger Doug’s Enterprises, Seattle WA)
- Price: $50
Who is this for
Wind Cave visitors who want park art with a real story, and WPA-poster collectors. The Wind Cave image is one of the two designs (with Great Smoky Mountains) for which no original has ever been recovered, so it is harder to come by than better-known designs like Yellowstone or Grand Canyon. At 13 1/2″ x 18 1/8″ it fits standard poster frames once you confirm the border.
Frequently asked questions
Is this an original WPA print or a reproduction?
It is a reproduction. Only about 100 copies of the original Wind Cave design were made between 1938 and 1941, and none have been found. Ranger Doug reproduced it from a black-and-white archival photograph and period brochures, then hand-pulled each poster using the original silkscreen technique.
Why do the colors look the way they do?
The original survives only as a black-and-white photograph, so the colors on this print are estimates based on period park brochures and historical records.
What size frame do I need?
The image is 13 1/2″ x 18 1/8″, but the border varies by print run. Ranger Doug recommends measuring your specific print before buying a frame.
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.
