Before Instagram and smartphones, one of the easiest ways to mark your trip to Yellowstone National Park was to get a stamp. People could buy a “passport” in a National Park Service gift shop, find a ranger, and get a stamp with the date of their visit.
After 40 years, collecting stamps at National Park Service (NPS) sites is a free and popular in-park activity. There’s an entire community of people who commiserate over the Passport to Your National Parks program and the stamps they’ve acquired or desire to get during their lifetime.
However, there is another stamp that can be put in their passports. It’s old, ornate, and might be the last of its kind.
Many people refer to the Old Faithful stamp as “an open secret” in Yellowstone, while some question whether it still exists. As of 2025, it does, even if it might disappear after a century of stamping passports, maps, and other mementos.
Secret Of The Stamps
Tiffany Espino is one of the people who has “the stamp” in her collection. It’s an intricate image of Old Faithful and the historic Old Faithful Inn, with the text “Yellowstone National Park – Old Faithful” encircling it, stamped in golden-brown ink.
“They confirmed that the stamps were 100 years old,” she said. “People stole or broke the others, so I believe the Old Faithful stamp is the only one left in Yellowstone.”
Espino referenced several stamps because similar stamps were available at visitor centers throughout Yellowstone and elsewhere in the past.
Tam Grant happened to have both of the known Yellowstone stamps. The other featured the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, with the text “Yellowstone National Park – Canyon.”
“I’m pretty sure the Canyon and Old Faithful stamps were part of a matching set,” she said. “The Canyon stamp disappeared five years ago or so.
Espino had the Canyon Stamp as well, along with similarly ornate stamps from Devils Tower, Mount Rushmore, and a bison from the “South Unit" in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
“When I visited (Devils Tower) ten years ago, we were told that stamp was one of the last, besides the two in Yellowstone,” she said. “Devils Tower was the only other place they knew that still had one.”
Leaving A Mark
Michael Brown of Oakland, New Jersey, got his first NPS stamps in 1997. He visited Shenandoah National Park with his wife and infant daughter and wanted to give his family something to mark their visit.
“I saw the little passport book on the bookshelf and told my wife that it would be a nice little souvenir for our daughter,” he said. “We’d make note of every national park she'd ever been to. She’s 29 now, and she can tell you every single unit she’s ever visited and the date she was there. It’s a nice keepsake.”
Brown has since become one of the founders and executive board members of the National Park Travelers Club (NPTC), a non-profit club of NPS stamp collectors who share their enthusiasm and experiences.
THE NPTC has a master database of every known stamp in the passport program, an annual convention, and the Flat Hat Award, available to any NPS employee or volunteer who “made your visit to the unit memorable.”
“I started a message board of people talking about where they can find this or that stamp, and that evolved into contests to see who could get the most stamps in a year, and it’s pretty much ballooned from there,” Brown said.
Brown admitted that he’s “hooked” on collecting NPS stamps himself. It turned him from an infrequent traveler to an avid collector.
“A big reason we’ve traveled to certain places is because there’s a new stamp available,” he said. “We really benefited from that program, and we've based a lot of our family vacations over the years around collecting these national park passport stamps.”
Over The Years
In addition to message boards and conventions, the NPTC also functions as an archive of the history of the Passport to Your National Parks program. While it might seem like it’s always been there, the stamps only started appearing in the late 1980s.
The first “National Stamp” appeared at the Statue of Liberty in 1986. A series of regional stamps appeared the same year at several NPS locations including Mount Rushmore, Yosemite, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and Cape Cod National Seashore.
Devils Tower got its first regional stamp in 1987, while Yellowstone was the sole national stamp in 1988 and 1989.
These are all part of the Annual Stamp Series, a tradition that continues to this day. The Passport to Your National Parks program releases a set of ten full-color collector sticker stamps, one park per region, featuring a photo and description of the NPS site.
The ordinary stamps are simple. They include the name and location of the NPS site, along with the date that changes daily, so everyone can get an accurate record of their visit.
“These ink stampers have an adjustable date wheel, but they typically last just a few years before they expire,” Brown said. “You can only put so many dates on that wheel, so the park will order a new stamp, but the wording or place name could be a little bit different, so we consider that a separate stamp.”
The NPTC keeps a record of every stamp, active and expired, from all 433 NPS sites. Many sites, like Yellowstone, have multiple stamps at different locations that are slightly different from each other, which collectors also consider separate stamps.
Even the further-flung NPS sites have their own stamps. A stamp from the National Park of American Samoa, off the coast of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean, is a mark of particular envy and distinction.
“With multiple visitor centers and bookstores, there have been thousands and thousands of stamps,” Brown said. “I think Yellowstone had a special 150th anniversary stamp in 2022.
How To
Despite the obvious connection to the NPS, the Passport to Your National Parks program is not under their umbrella. Brown said stamps and passports are the products of Eastern National, a non-profit cooperating association that has partnered with the NPS since 1948.
Eastern National operates interpretive bookstores in 150 NPS units, where the stamps are distributed. They sell several different “editions” of passport books for the stamps, but Brown said a passport isn’t required to partake in the program.
“Go into a visitor center or bookstore, and they're typically a hand stamper and an ink pad in the corner or on a ranger’s desk,” he said. “Then, you pick it up and stamp away.”
The passports are designed for a more organized and dynamic presentation, but nothing’s stopping someone from stamping their hand, map, or notebook. One thing that Brown and NPTC members appreciate is that the activity has and always will be “100% free.”
“You don’t need to buy a passport to participate,” he said. “You might not see those stamps, but they’ve been right in front of your face for 40 years. And it’s all free.”
A Scarce And Sacred Relic
The Passport to Your National Parks program is still going strong in 2026. Last year, Eastern National released a Passport to the American Revolution, a special edition highlighting NPS sites associated with the American Revolution, for the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Nevertheless, the Passport program only goes back to 1986. The existence of the Old Faithful stamp indicates that the culture of stamp collecting in the national parks dates back much further.
Finding information on the history of these stamps is difficult, especially as they’ve become rarer and harder to find. Many NPS stamp collectors believe the Old Faithful stamp might be the last of its kind.
Maysha Moni visited Yellowstone in 2025 and confirmed the Old Faithful stamp survives by sharing photos of it and its inked impression in her Eastern National passport. She said the rangers told her it was “approximately 90 years old,” and shared how others can acquire it during their next visit.
“Ask about the original wooden stamp at the desk of the Old Faithful gift shop,” she said. “They will not allow you to stamp the book yourself but will happily stamp for you.”
Brown said most NPS rangers let people stamp their own passports, but it’s clear that the wooden Old Faithful stamp is being protected while it lasts. Many enthusiasts fear it could be broken before it’s officially retired and, in the best-case scenario, preserved at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner, Montana.
The Old Faithful stamp has been marking the memories of Yellowstone’s visitors for almost a century. It’s not an official stamp of the thriving Passport to Your National Parks program, but it might be the rarest and most treasured stamp in countless passports around the world.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
