1955 3c New Hampshire, The Old Man of the Mountains Live Free or Die

U.S. #1068
1955 3¢ Old Man of the Mountain
New Hampshire Issue
Issue Date: June 21, 1955
City:  Franconia, New Hampshire
Quantity: 125,944,400
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method:  Rotary Press
Perforations: 10 ½ x 11
Color:  Green

This stamp was issued on June 21, 1955, in Franconia, New Hampshire, marking the sesquicentennial of the discovery of the Old Man of the Mountain. The formation was first recorded in 1805 by surveyors working on Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains. The rock face consisted of five granite ledges positioned roughly 1,200 feet above Profile Lake, which when viewed from the correct angle formed the profile of an old man looking eastward.

Geologists believe the formation was shaped by a combination of glacial movement and repeated cycles of seasonal freezing and thawing, a process that may have taken thousands of years to produce the distinctive profile. Some estimates suggest the rock face had existed for as long as ten thousand years before its discovery by European settlers. Over time, the Old Man of the Mountain became a defining symbol of New Hampshire, appearing widely in state imagery and eventually on its state quarter decades after this stamp was issued.

The same forces of erosion that shaped the formation over thousands of years eventually caused its collapse, and on May 3, 2003, the rock face gave way and fell from the mountainside. Efforts had been made in 1957 to stabilize the formation using steel rods and cement, but nature ultimately prevailed. This stamp remains one of the few United States issues depicting a natural landmark that no longer exists, preserving in miniature a landscape feature that generations of New Hampshire residents once considered a permanent fixture of their state.