Railroad Mail Mascot on Display in D.C.

The National Postal Museum reports, "Owney held court in the 'American Experience' tent at the 2010 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. National Postal Museum staff and volunteers had three days during the festival to highlight the museum’s collection and its programming."

The site goes on to say, "Owney was a terrier mix who wandered into the Albany, New York Post Office in 1888 and was adopted and named by the postal workers. He was fond of riding mail wagons and began following the mail onto the trains where he quickly became a good luck charm to the railway mail clerks. Owney rode the trains across the country and even made a voyage around the world by steamer in 1895. Beloved by postal workers and the public alike, he acquired tags and metals that were affixed to a jacket that was given to him by Postmaster General John Wanamaker. Owney died in Toledo, Ohio in 1897."

The taxidermy specimen of Owney and some of Owney’s tags are on permanent display in the Postal Museum’s atrium.  However, at the Festival a fiberglass model of Owney, created by the Smithsonian’s Office of Exhibits Central, was displayed.

Shown above, long-time NPM volunteer Ida Marie Giusti stops by to visit Owney. 

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