Crested Butte Stamp To Honor Coal Mining Culture

(Elk Avenue  The Jack’s Cabin Punch and Postal  February  24 , 2016)

Residents and significant others will be treated to a new postage stamp recognizing the contributions of coal miners to the town and the nation. The first blocks are expected Friday in time for the weekend.

First day of issue stamps, featuring a lump of coal against a solid black background, will go on sale at noon.

“It looks a lot like a square off a checkerboard only smaller,” said one mailperson.
A gov’ment pamphlet described the stamp similarly, adding that “although it’s a bit abstract we are certain people will figure out what it represents after a while.”

A design to commemorate the fathers of skiing was dropped as was a jokester theme venerating the town’s famous two-story outhouse culture. Federal officials, in town on “other” business decided in favor of the coal-mining motif when several hundred paternity suits were filed in just 12 hours. In addition the owner of the outhouse refused to cooperate with the federals, threatening to shoot them if they “so much as wander onto my digs up here.”

In 1869 mercenaries loyal to Lloyd Woodrows-Harlan overran stockyards, stills and chicken coops up and down the East River Valley. Then the ragamuffin legions stopped the onslaught high above the town and immediately began constructing ski lifts. However after a few hours of digging they discovered incredible quality anthracite and sub-bituminous coal and opened mines instead, setting skiing on the back burner for 100 years. After another hour behind their respective shovels most of Harlan’s troops went to the bar for the rest of the day.

If sales of the coal mining stamp are as brisk as expected the feds will print a second stamp, which honors the sport of skiing in 2017. Officials are searching for a simple, yet symbiotic design that compliments the first stamp. Public input is not particularly welcome.

– Gabby Haze