When I conceived the concept of bench mark replicas, acquiring a photograph of the Mount St. Helens bench mark was my most wanted of my Most Wanted list. 

At a trade show in 1996, a woman told me she knew a geologist who "rescued" a bench mark from Mount St. Helens before it erupted. Well aware of the "$250 DOLLARS FINE OR IMPRISONMENT" admonishment, she didn't feel at liberty to put me in contact with the rescuer. Since then I have tried to uncover information, to little avail.

Conceding that we may never find an image of the actual mark, we created one that represents both before and after May 18, 1980. 

But, we haven't given up. We still research and explore leads. And we hold out hope that someone will come forward, perhaps anonymously, with a photo of that rescued mark. 

-- Betty

P.S. We like USGS as an original source of information. We recently came across this interesting video featuring geologists close to the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens.