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Devil's Tower near the Black Hills, South Dakota, circa 1940

Subjects
Mountains & HillsNational & State Parks
Card type
Linen
Date
c. 1930 (White Border)
Front of Devil's Tower near the Black Hills, South Dakota, circa 1940, c. 1930 linen postcard
Front
Back of Devil's Tower near the Black Hills, South Dakota, circa 1940, c. 1930 linen postcard
Back

About this postcard

A tall, fluted rock monolith rises above a dense band of green and autumn-tinted trees under a blue sky streaked with pink at the horizon, captioned by the card as "Devil's Tower near Black Hills, S. D." The tower is a laccolith of igneous rock whose exposed columns give it a striated, stump-like profile; it stands in northeastern Wyoming, near the South Dakota Black Hills, and was proclaimed the nation's first national monument by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Long sacred to Plains Indian peoples and later famous as the setting of the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," it remains a landmark of the northern Great Plains.

Postcard Details

Message

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PublisherJohnston & Bordewyk
DEVIL'S TOWER NEAR BLACK HILLS, S. D. --- Says an Indian legend: Two children playing on the plains were pursued by a bear, they prayed, and the Great Spirit answering raised the ground underneath them and formed this tower (later called the Devil's Tower by white men). The fluted sides are marks left by the bear's claws in his savage efforts to reach the children. The tops of the trees are 800 feet below the crown of the tower. Located west of Spearfish. 18838 POST CARD PLACE STAMP HERE NATURAL COLOR POST CARD MADE IN U.S.A. BY E. C. KROPP CO., MILWAUKEE, WIS. (GKY) PUB. BY JOHNSTON & BORDEWYK, RAPID CITY, S. D.
Addressed to

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Postcard record

PublisherJohnston & Bordewyk
ConditionVery good
Place depictedDevil's Tower, WY
Place mentionedBlack Hills, SD
Place mentionedSpearfish
PublisherJohnston & Bordewyk, Rapid City, SD
NotesLinen-textured stock with a white border; caption printed in the sky area. No writing on front. No postmark. Divided-back linen-texture card with white border; pencil notation "Recd of Ed Raynor / Aug - 29 - 1946" on message side; light foxing/soiling.

Cite this card

Devil's Tower near the Black Hills, South Dakota, circa 1940, postcard, c. 1930. PostalPast Collection. https://postalpast.com/postcard/devils-tower-near-the-black-hills-south-dakota-circa-1940. Accessed October 25, 2026.