About This Stamp
Building the transcontinental railroad during the 1860s was a massive engineering feat and one of the great achievements of the 19th century. The U.S. Postal Service® marked the 150th anniversary of the completion of the railroad in 1869 with three distinct stamps in a pane of 18 stamps commemorating the milestone.
The completion was marked by the “Golden Spike Ceremony,” which was held on May 10, 1869, when the rail lines built by the Central Pacific from the west and the Union Pacific from the east were joined at Promontory Summit in Utah. One stamp features the Jupiter locomotive that powered the train carrying the officers and guests of the Central Pacific to the ceremony. Another stamp features the No. 119 locomotive that powered the train carrying the Union Pacific’s officers and guests. The center stamp portrays the famous golden spike that was a prominent part of the ceremony.
Both companies employed a great number of workers at a time when roadbeds had to be dug and tunnels excavated without the benefit of machines. A large immigrant labor force, eventually totaling more than 20,000, carried out most of the backbreaking and often dangerous work. The Union Pacific hired mainly Irish immigrants, typically demobilized soldiers who had fought in the Civil War, as well German and Italian immigrants and some African Americans. The Central Pacific relied primarily on the labor of Chinese immigrants, who despite facing discrimination and unequal pay, worked long hours and took on some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks. Thousands of Mormon workers helped both companies make the final push across Utah.
Art director Greg Breeding designed the issuance. Michael J. Deas illustrated the Jupiter and No. 119 stamps using traditional, 19th-century oil painting techniques. The replicas of the two locomotives at the Golden Spike National Historic Site were used as visual references. Kevin Cantrell illustrated the stamp depicting the ceremonial golden spike and did the border treatments and typography for all three stamps. Each of the stamps and the header feature gold-foiled highlights that produce a glimmering effect.
The Transcontinental Railroad stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps. These Forever stamps will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Designer, Stamp Art Director
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.
Stamp Artist
Michael J. Deas
Michael J. Deas, an award-winning illustrator and master realist artist, was raised in suburban New Orleans and Long Island, New York. Although he took art classes as a young man, paying for them by working as an illustrator of novels and children’s books, he considers himself to be essentially self-taught.
For more than twenty-five years, Deas has created stamp images for the Postal Service™. His 1995 portrait of Marilyn Monroe was one of the top selling commemorative stamps ever. Since then, he has created twenty other portraits for stamps, among them Thomas Wolfe (2000), Audrey Hepburn (2003), Ronald Reagan (2005), Edgar Allan Poe (2009), George H.W. Bush (2019), and most recently Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2023).
The Society of Illustrators has recognized his works with five gold medals and two silver. Two of the gold medals were awarded for stamp designs: James Dean (Legends of Hollywood, 1996), and Thornton Wilder (Literary Arts, 1997). In 2004, Deas received the Hamilton King Award, given for the single best illustration of the year.
In 2012-13, forty of his original paintings, drawings, and illustrations were the subject of a solo exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. In the late nineties, Deas was one of seven artists whose works were featured in “Visual Solutions—Seven Illustrators and the Creative Process,” at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
In addition to his artwork, Deas is a noted authority on Edgar Allan Poe. His 1989 book, The Portraits & Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe, documents more than seventy historic images of the poet and is now considered a standard reference work.
Over the years, clients have included TIME magazine (six covers), Columbia Pictures (redesign of the well known lady with a torch logo), Reader’s Digest, Random House, HarperCollins, Sports Illustrated, as well as a number of prominent advertising agencies.
Today, Deas works from his studio in the historic district of New Orleans.
Typographer
Kevin Cantrell
After growing up in Germany and South Africa, Kevin Cantrell earned his BFA in Graphic Design from Brigham Young University (2008), where, fascinated in lettering, he established his signature typographical style.
His clients include Nike, Putnam, M&RL, Neenah Paper, Fetcham Park (UK), Harvard University, Princeton University, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Cottonhouse Hotel (Barcelona).
In 2014, Cantrell was named one of Print magazine's 20 Under 30 New Visual Artists, and is an Art Director's Club Young Gun 12.
His work has been recognized by Communication Arts design and typography annuals, Graphis, Type Directors Club, Print Regional Design Annual, Art Director's Club, and the One Show.
Cantrell currently lives and works in Mantua, Utah. The typographer for the Hank Aaron stamp (2024), Cantrell was also the typographer for the 2019 Transcontinental Railroad stamp issuance and illustrated one of the three stamps.