By Marjory J. Sente

October 27, 1948. What a day for Prescott: Navy Day, former President Theodore Roosevelt’s 90th birthday anniversary and, yes, the first day of issue of the Rough Riders commemorative postage stamp at Prescott, Arizona. For that one-day in October of 1948, the eyes of the stamp collecting and first day cover world were focused on Prescott. (The three basic elements of a first day cover are the envelope, the stamp and the postmark. The postmark is the critical element as it verifies the date on which the stamp in question was canceled and ties it to the cover. If the date of the cancel is on the first day a particular stamp design has been issued by the post office, that envelope is a ‘First Day Cover’)

Four months earlier on June 24th and 25th, many of the surviving Rough Riders had convened in Prescott to celebrate both the 50th anniversary of the group’s founding in 1898 and the location from which the Arizona contingent of Rough Riders, led by Captain Buckey O’Neill, departed to fight the Spanish-American War. While Harman Wynkoop was the moving force behind the June reunion, Don J. Seaman, manager of The Prescott Evening Courier and Arizona Representative Richard Harless were responsible for introducing a bill in Congress for the Rough Riders 50th anniversary commemorative stamp.

Solon Borglum’s famous Rough Riders statue (said to be of Captain O’Neill) that resides on the Yavapai County courthouse plaza was selected to be the subject of the stamp. Lloyd Adams of Prescott took the photo used to produce the plates to print 53.8 million Rough Riders stamps.

Writing about Buckey and the Arizona Rough Riders in "The Arizona Rough Rider Monument and Captain W.O. O’Neill," Sharlot Hall called Borglum’s work the "greatest equestrian statue in the United States – equaled only by one other in the world, it is said by critics of great sculpture – the greatest work of one of America’s greatest artists – to stand on the plaza made beautiful by O’Neill’s own hands." According to Hall, when Buckey was the sheriff of Yavapai County, he saw the need for shade on the plaza and planted young trees. Some of these trees canopied Borglum’s statue when it was dedicated on July 3, 1907.

Annie Campbell, writing in the same booklet on Prescott’s famous monument, noted that few monuments have been dedicated to those who died during the Spanish American War. In addition, Prescott’s Rough Rider monument "memorializes a phase of American life which could never come again. The regiment epitomized the western spirit. Violent individualists every one of them, the miner, cowpuncher, New York athlete, and Regular Army man met, and in their desire to serve their country did so with a dash and esprit de corps seldom equaled in this or any other country."

So it was no surprise when the Post Office Department selected the Arizona Rough Rider Monument as the subject of this 50th anniversary commemorative stamp and Prescott to be the site for the events surrounding its release or first day of issue to the U.S. public.

On October 25th, two days prior to the release of the commemorative, assemblies at the junior and senior high schools paid tribute to the Rough Riders and their commemorative stamp. Maurice O’Neill, Captain O’Neill’s son, spoke to the assemblies, as did Prescott Rough Rider Harman Wynkoop. Leo Stephens, president of the Mile High Stamp Club, presided at the assemblies and predicted that the nation’s 17 million stamp collectors would quickly buy this stamp. Among the local officials in attendance was Gail Gardner, Prescott’s Postmaster.

First day activities began early on the 27th, when a line started to form at the Prescott post office at 7 a.m. Albert W. Evens, a retired Prescott mail carrier, was the first in line to purchase the new Rough Rider stamp. He bought a sheet of the three-cent stamps costing him $1.50 from post office employee Charles Blanton. Today a sheet of 50 stamps paying the first class rate of 42-cents would cost $21.

While the local public was buying the new stamps in the front of the post office, more than 50 special employees were working behind the scenes to process the requests for first day covers. According to an account in the October 27, 1948 Prescott Evening Courier, Assistant Postmaster Gifford Franks estimated "today that the local post office will handle more than 10,000 pounds of Rough Rider stamp mail, routed chiefly to stamp collectors all over the world who prize first day covers." Requests came from individual collectors requesting one or two covers to dealers ordering as many as 10,000.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Roosevelt and San Juan Hill Cover01) Reuse only by permission.

Many of the first day covers for the Rough Riders 50th anniversary commemorative stamp had special designs called cachets. Ira Fluegel produced a multicolored cachet showing Teddy Roosevelt and his men charging San Juan Hill, Cuba. More than 50 different cachets have been used with this commemorative stamp.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Officers Mess Cover02) Reuse only by permission.

Fulton’s engraved cachet portrays "The Officers’ Mess" and according to the notation, Captain ‘Bucky’ (misspelled) O’Neill is in the foreground.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Buckey and monument Cover03) Reuse only by permission.

Artcraft prepared this cachet featuring both Buckey and the Borglum statue. This handsome first day cover is likely the most common of all the designs prepared for this stamp.