VIP

Owney: Mascot of the Railway Mail Service - James Bruns

This is Owney:.

 

 

 

This view from the back gives you a nice look at all his tags which he gained as he travelled around the US with the mailway. Each tag represents a different Post Office (he had 1,017).   His home post office was in Albany.

Owney was a VIP - very important pooch. Not only did he travel the US, he made his way up to Montreal, whose post office tried to keep him; to Japan. He not only rode the rails but rode the boats.This short biography is easily readable by children but is also nice for adults. It includes photographs.You can see Owney in all his tagged, but dead (he was around starting in 1888) at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, DC. (Yes, I know that Postal Museum sounds boring, but it was actually very nice and had much more than stamps. Nicely interactive for the kids, less crowded).

Reblogged from Chris' Fish Place