As of 2008, the Society of Automotive Engineers student organization at UW-Platteville performs all annual maintenance, including brush and tree removal in fall, lighting it for Homecoming in fall with fiberboard wicks in coffee cans of kerosene, and whitewashing it in spring. The letter has been maintained by engineering students at the university since the mining engineering department closed in the 1990s. Clausen from Racine, who later purchased the land, then donated it to the Board of State College Regents. The college had received permission to construct the letter from property owner William Snow. Platte Mound is a one mile long and half mile wide mound that rises 450 feet (140 m) above its surroundings. His story appeared in Life on May 23, 1949.
It took 23 minutes to relay the torch to the mound. Life magazine reporter Francis Miller attended the Aplighting, where he witnessed 250 quart cans with corncobs lit around the outline of the letters.
Female students noticed the general disrepair of the letter, which led to a custom of cleaning the letter in the fall and whitewashing it in April on the Thursday before the Miner's Ball. The letter was neglected during World War II when few men were available. After World War II, the tradition changed to include lighting the letter on the evening of the spring Miner's Ball. īefore 1940, the letter was lit only for homecoming. The illuminated letter was visible from 28 miles away. It was lit from a torch that was relayed 4.5 miles (7.2 km) from the school's Tech building. Work was completed about six months later and the letter was celebrated at that year's homecoming on October 16, 1937. Morrow and other professors drove several miles away to inspect the work from a distance, and they recommended changes to counteract distortion from the slope of the mound. The letter was constructed from limestone found on the mound. Underclassmen constructed the letter using borrowed picks, crowbars, and wheelbarrows from a local CCC camp. Seniors surveyed the letter to make sure that it was larger than the "M" in Colorado. Morrow, declared a field day for the department personnel and engineering students to complete the "M". The unfinished letter was so pronounced that engineering department head, H.
Several students who went hiking in the same spot after the snow melted used large rocks to build one leg of a letter "M" while resting. The letter "M" was selected for the School of Mines at the university. They wrote the letter "M" in deep snow, and it was visible for several weeks when a cold spell hit the area. They created the first letter on the mound that winter. They believed that a larger "M" should be written on the Platte Mound to represent Platteville miners. University of Wisconsin-Platteville students Raymond Medley and Alvin Knoerr worked at a Colorado mine in the summer of 1936, where they saw a large letter "M" on the side of Mount Zion in Golden, Colorado that stood for the Colorado School of Mines. The letter is 241 feet (73 m) high, 214 feet (65 m) wide, with legs 25 feet (7.6 m) wide. It is the largest hillside letter "M" in the world. The Platte Mound M is the letter "M" written using whitewashed stones on Platte Mound about four miles east of Platteville, Wisconsin. The "M" lit by lanterns during the annual "M" Ball.