Tommyknocker Postcard Contest

 

Celebrate Platteville’s mining heritage by designing a tommyknocker postcard! Winning designs will be sold as postcards to benefit the Friends of The Mining & Rollo Jamison Museums and the Pages and Parcels bookstore in Potosi.

Entry forms can be downloaded as a pdf or picked up at the library.

Divisions

Winners will be chosen from each of these categories:

  • Birth-kindergarten
  • 1st-6th grade
  • 7th-12th grade
  • Adult (ages 19+)

Guidelines

  • Your postcard design can be vertical or horizontal.
  • Your finished postcard should be 6.25 inches x 4 inches.
  • You may submit multiple entries.
  • Your artwork should be created by you and only you. We can’t print trademarked characters. Artwork may be created digitally but cannot use AI.
  • Winners will be chosen from these age categories: birth-kindergarten, 1st-6th grade, 7th-12th grade, adult (ages 19+).
  • Winning designs will be judged based on design, originality, adherence to the theme, and reproducibility. Number of winning entries will depend on the number of entries.
  • You may use any materials in your design, but your design should be flat so that we can scan it. Vivid colors will reproduce better than pale colors.
  • All entries become the property of the City of Platteville and may be reproduced for public distribution, displayed in the City buildings, and posted to the City websites.
  • Library and museum staff will select the winners.
  • Winners will be announced in November.

Entries

Entry forms can be downloaded as a pdf or picked up at the library.
Submit your entries to the Platteville Public Library, 225 W Main St, Platteville WI. Entries will be accepted starting on October 1, 2026.

All entries become the property of Platteville Public Library and may be reproduced for public distribution, displayed in the library, and posted to the library’s website. Entries cannot be returned.

Entry deadline is 6:00 pm on Friday, October 30, 2026.

What is a tommyknocker?

A Tommyknocker is a mythical human-like creature in Welsh, Cornish, and Devon folklore. It wears a tiny version of standard miner’s garb and commits random mischief, such as stealing miners’ unattended tools and food.
According to Cornish folklore, the name comes from the knocking on the mine walls that happens just before cave-ins. To some miners, Tommyknockers were malevolent spirits, and the knocking was the sound of them hammering at walls and supports to cause a cave-in. Others saw them as essentially well-meaning practical jokers whose knocking was a way of warning the miners that a life-threatening collapse was about to occur. Some folklore suggests the knocking is the helpful warnings from spirits of miners who died in previous mining accidents. To give thanks for the warnings, and to avoid future peril, the miners cast the last bite of their pasties into the mines for the Tommyknockers.