Governor Léonce Lagarde - 2.5 franc

This regular postage issue features a fine line-engraved portrait of Gouverneur Léonce Lagarde, capturing the administrator in profile wearing an official high-collared French diplomatic tunic bearing a neck order cross decoration. The circular portrait frame is topped by a stylized triangular emblem enclosing a dromedary camel and rider, while the lower label balances an engraving of the historic Hamoudi Mosque of Djibouti City. Historically, this definitive stamp marks the foundational legacy of the first governor of the Côte Française des Somalis. Lagarde was instrumental in executing the 1896 treaty that officially transferred the administrative capital from Obock to the developing port of Djibouti, cementing France's logistical foothold along the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and initiating the construction of the critical Franco-Ethiopian Railway corridor.