The Fish and Game Stamps of Marion County, Kansas

The Final Issues

County fishing stamp sales remained relatively strong until they were discontinued along with the duck stamps after 1973. The 1973 fishing stamps were printed in black on orange paper and measure approximately 44 x 34 mm (see Figure 26). Duck stamp sales never rebounded and after 1961 no more than 250 stamps were printed in a single year (Sports License Records). The fatal blow was dealt to the program with construction of the 6,000 acre Marion Reservoir located three miles northwest of Marion and just 6 1/2 miles from the county lake. Congress had authorized the dam and reservoir in 1950 for flood control, water supply and conservation. The project was designed by the Army Corps of Engineers and construction began in 1964. The project was completed in 1968 at a cost of $ 13,600,000. (Anonymous, 1969).

Once the federal reservoir began to fill with water in the early 1970s, the majority of ducks did not return to the county lake. In 1973 only 50 duck stamps were printed. Figure 44 shows a complete pane representing 10 of the final 50 stamps. Sales to hunters reached an all time low of five (see Table VI). The stamps were then discontinued and replaced by printed permits (Snelling, 1992).  This brought to an end the longest running waterfowl stamp series issued by a state or local government in the United States during the twentieth century. Figure 45 shows one of the last five duck stamps sold by Marion County, used on the combination hunting and fishing license issued to John Waner.

Figure 44. Two complete panes of the 1973 duck stamp have been recorded. One is in collector’s hands and the other is in the Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 45. Obverse and reverse of the 1973 combination fish and hunt license issued to John Waner. The license bears one of the last five duck stamps sold by Marion County.