Owney: Star Pup of the US Railway Mail Service

(Host: Christine) In the late 1800s, a dog called Owney became a star as he won over the hearts of postal workers across the United States and sometimes, even, beyond. This episode is all about Owney, his adventures, the souvenirs he collected, and his revered place in postal history.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In the late 1800s, US postal workers and thepublic fell in love with a pup from upstate
New York.
This episode of Footnoting History is allabout the adored dog named Owney.
Hey everyone, Christine here!

(00:25):
As you just heard, today we’re going totalk about Owney, the most popular and beloved
dog in the history of the US Postal Service.
If you were here with me in January for theMignonette episode, I fully admit that was
a very, very dark topic.
This one, while you’ll see it was inspiredby the same trip that sparked that topic,

(00:46):
is much lighter and sweeter–I promise.
I first learned of Owney’s existence whenI was in Washington, DC last December.
I paid a visit to the Smithsonian’s NationalPostal Museum–which is fabulous, by the
way–and came across a statue of a dog onthe landing near the escalator.
The statue was of a diminutive pup wearinga much-adorned harness.

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Its placard read Owney, Mascot of the US PostalService, Bronze Sculpture by Daniel C. Brown.
Then I learned Owney had his own display.
Of course I was intrigued, and by the timeI left the museum that day I knew Owney would
be given the Footnoting History treatment.
However, before we jump in, I want to remindyou all that a captioned version of this episode

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can be found on FootnotingHistory.com, andYouTube.com/FootnotingHistory.
I must, of course, tip my hat to the Smithsonianbecause–exactly as you’d expect–most
of the information out there on Owney comesfrom them.
You can find a listing of many of the sourcesused for this episode on FootnotingHistory.com.
And, as always, thank you to everyone whobuys our merch and supports us through Patreon.

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You are the absolute best.
Now, then, let’s get to Owney because ifthere’s one thing I know, it’s that people
love dog stories and who am I to keep youfrom one any longer?
In 1888, the dog we know as Owney found hisway into the Post Office in Albany, New York.
For a time it was the common tale thatOwney was a stray pup who wandered in on his

(02:19):
own.
However in the last decade or so it has becomeaccepted that Owney probably belonged to a
postal clerk who allowed the dog to walk towork with him.
Although Owney’s owner eventually abandonedhim there (or, hey, maybe Owney wanted to
stay) he was never kicked out.
Regardless of how he ended up ownerless inthe Albany Post Office, the fact remains that

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he became a much-beloved darling to the employees…andpictures of Owney make it easy to understand
why.
Although no one knew his exact age or whatexactly made up his breed lineage–he was
almost certainly part terrier though–tome, Owney was adorable.
He was small, with white dominating his underbelly,front legs, and around his snout while the

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rest of his body was varying shades of brown.
In most photographs he looks plaintive andshaggy in that kind of way that makes you
want to give him a snuggle.
As for his name, even that has questionablehistory.
One possible explanation is that it was givento him by the clerk who originally led him
to the post office.
Another is that Owney received his name asthe result of people regularly asking him,

(03:23):
“who owns you?”
Owney became, essentially, every clerks’dog.
They embraced him as one of their own andloved him.
Meanwhile Owney, well, he REALLY loved mailand in particular, mail bags.
He slept on them, he guarded them, and hefollowed them wherever they went…even if
that meant leaving the post office.

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It was his love of following the mail thatturned Owney into a traveler who would capture
widespread attention.
Since Owney’s main interest was followinghis beloved mail bags wherever they were headed,
this often meant leaving Albany.
In this period mail made its way around thecountry mostly by train.
As such, Owney began riding the mail trainsregularly, going wherever the mood struck

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him, on both short trips like from Albanyto New York City, and increasingly long ones.
It might not have been all joy riding, though,if he was unlucky.
The folks who worked on those trains knewit was a dangerous job.
There was always a risk of being robbed orin some sort of horrible accident…and tragedy
was more common than you’d like to think.

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The National Archives reports that from 1877to 1896, “94 clerks were killed in the line
of duty, and 821 were seriously injured onthe job through derailments, falls, drownings,
fires, and other work-related accidents.”
The robberies are part of that ‘other work-relatedaccidents’ category.

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Owney, however, was not worried about suchthings.
He seems to have loved travel and the postalworkers who rode on these trains.
For many his presence was like that of a guardianangel, because there are no records of any
form of major incident occurring when he waspresent on a train.
One of the most interesting things, to me,about Owney’s travels, is that people always

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took care of him.
This was helped, certainly, by the fact thatthe postal clerks from the Albany Post Office
provided him with a collar that declared hisname and home.
Owney guarded the mail, he guarded the postalworkers, and he was a welcome sight to people
far and wide as his reputation began to grow.

It grew so much that two things happened: newspapers took note and people started to (05:26):
undefined
give him souvenirs.
Reading newspaper articles about Owney canbe downright delightful.
He’s often given far more space than you’dthink.
This is perhaps a tribute to the concept ofdogs being a human's best friend–everyone
seemed to have interest in his comings andgoings.
Stories about him became heartwarming pagefillers.

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For example, one typical write up of Owney’sexploits can be found in the April 9, 1893
edition of the Omaha Daily Bee, from Nebraska.
The headline is incredibly respectful, callingour hero Mr. Owney and telling us that the
“Noted Canine Tourist Paid a Visit to OmahaYesterday.”
It goes on to call Owney “One of the mostdistinguished travelers and unique individuals

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in the United States” but also to let usknow that “He is not a handsome dog, by
any means, but is of a philosophic, happydisposition.”
On this trip Owney apparently inspected theOmaha Post Office as if he was an official,
devoured the food provided by the local clerks,and abandoned Omaha in favor of heading

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for the Black Hills after only one night inthe city.
It’s easy to see how people would find thissort of article a charming break from real
life’s troubles.
Another fun article dates to February 7, 1895and appeared in the Marble Hill Press, out
of Missouri.
This article was called “A Dog on the Road”and it let readers know that Owney was following

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his apparently customary practice of travelingthe postal rail routes in the southern states
during the cold, wintry months up north.
It tells us with an amusingly authoritativetone that “It is Owney’s present intention
not to return to brave the rigors of northernclimate before June” and, further, that

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he “has the postal car habit so thoroughlydeveloped that he can rest in no other places,
and sleep only comes to his tired eyes whenhe lies curled up on a mail sack.”
Accompanying the article is an illustrationof a very shaggy Owney for extra cute points.
As for the souvenirs, those usually took theform of tags, most likely made of metal.

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Over the course of the near decade he traveled,Owney amassed hundreds of these tags, maybe
even 1000.
Initially the tags were attached to his collarbut, as you can imagine, that began to weigh
him down.
Thankfully, Postmaster General John Wanamakerhad a plan.
When he learned about all the tags being givento Owney, he provided an alternative method

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for Owney to carry them–a harness that allowedfor the tags to be more evenly distributed
over the trunk of Owney’s body and relievehim of aches and pains.
Additionally, whenever a postal worker noticedthat the harness was getting too full, they
would remove some of the tags and send them back to Albanyor, in some cases, Washington, DC.
The result of this is that the Smithsonianhas a massive collection of Owney’s tags.

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I chose some to feature on the blog post forthis entry, so if you want to see them definitely
head over to FootnotingHistory.com while youlisten.
The tags c0me from all sorts of places andevents.
Some were special and personalized, featuringOwney’s name and the date of his visit to
a particular location while some were a littleless exciting–doing things like advertising

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for a company.
Some of my favorites among his collectioninclude:
A horseshoe shaped tag that said ‘presentedto His Dogship by F.M.Parker’ marking
the date as April 20, 1892, and indicatingits connection to the Baltimore and Grafton
Railway Post OfficeAn advertisement tag that said ‘presented

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to Owney by Ketchum’s Pharmacy, Lawrence,Massachusetts, April 25, 1896’
An undated tag in the shape of a Maltese crosswith Owney’s name emblazoned across the
middle, given to the pup by a postmarkingand stamping company
A rectangular tag that said ‘Be Good toOwney’ presented to the dog by the postal

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clerks from Rock Island, Illinois in 1895.
I also chose two tags that had ties to the dog-loving community.
One, from the Southern California Kennel Club,was presented to Owney in April 1893, and
called him “special for best traveling dog.”
Not to be outdone, the Butterfly Bench Showof Grand Rapids, Michigan, gave Owney a similar

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tag that said “Awarded to Owney, the GlobeTrotter, December 8-11, 1896.”
You don’t need to be a historian of materialculture–that is, physical items–to appreciate
how every tag tells a story and these tagsare a literal bounty of information about
who knew who Owney was, who paid attentionto where he traveled, and who wanted to either

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pay tribute to him or promote themselves throughconnection with the famous, beloved wandering
dog.
While the majority of Owney’s life was spentcrossing the Continental United States and
dipping into Canada on rail trains, his mostremarkable trip was one around the world.
Now, don’t think that this was somethingOwney decided to do of his own accord.
While, generally speaking, he wandered whereverhis heart desired, his globetrotting adventure

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in 1895 was carefully orchestrated.
Likely inspired in part by Jules Vernes’Around the World in 80 Days and the Tacoma,
Washington started and ended worldwide travelsof businessman George Francis Train, a collection
of businessmen from Tacoma worked with thepostal clerks who loved Owney to launch a
publicity stunt where the dog was shepherdedaround the globe.

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It took him (and the clerk that accompaniedhim) just over four months, but he managed
to visit places like Japan, Singapore, Shanghai,and Algiers.
Newspaper coverage by the Roanoke Daily Timesnoted that in Japan, he was given a Passport
that allowed him to travel freely in the countryand that when he made a stop in Hong Kong

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he visited the consulate and many shops andmerchants, with some people adding small pieces
of money to his collar.
It is believed that hundreds of people turnedout to see him on his grand return.
He was truly a pup of public interest.
All glorious adventures, however, must cometo an end and Owney’s time as a traveling
dog couldn’t last forever.
By 1897 all the hustling and bustling aroundtook its toll on him.

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He was getting up there in age (though noone knew exactly what his age was) and he
stopped traveling regularly, even taking respitewith a postal worker in Missouri.
His disappearance from the rails did not gounnoticed.
Rumors swirled (and some newspaper articlesclaimed) that he’d been shot for attempting
to bite someone.
It was deemed newsworthy enough that on May2nd, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published

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a three-column article titled OWNEY IS NOTDEAD.
It assured people that he was living in retirementin Missouri but also chronicled his importance
to the railway postal workers.
It said that he could always tell a postalworker from another kind of human, shared
stories about his travels around the world,commented on his change in disposition with
age, and proposed that the pinnacle of hisfame was when he was given the Freedom of

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San Francisco by the mayor.
However, Owney wasn’t fully down and out,yet.
He still occasionally traveled but, unfortunately,one of his trips would be his undoing.
In June of that year he was in Toledo, Ohiodoing what he always did, following the mail
bags and being appreciated by those he encountered.
Owney’s advanced age and changed temperamentcaused him to be less friendly than he used

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to be, especially when it came to having histags admired.
So it came to be that, in Toledo, he bit apostal clerk (identified in multiple newspapers
as Clerk Blankertz).
This turn of events proved fatal for Owney.
The Postmaster declared that Owney was a danger,called for the local sheriff, and had the
dog put down quickly.
It is perhaps not surprising that newspapersaround the country carried this news.

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The Houston Daily Post declared that “hisyears of travel all over the United States
and around the world have made him the mostfamous dog of his time” while other papers
carried similar sentiments.
Owney’s death was a gut punch to the postalworkers who loved him.
He’d been their friend and companion fornearly a decade.
He was, for all intents and purposes, thepet of railway postal workers across the country,

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as well as their unofficial mascot.
Mail clerks didn’t want Owney to be forgottenso they contributed to a fund to preserve
him through taxidermy.
Owney was given the full preservation treatment,then put on display in a place of honor–at
the Washington, DC headquarters of the USPostal Department.
He largely remained there until the 1910swhen he was transferred to the Smithsonian
Institution and, when the National PostalMuseum opened in 1993, Owney was a part of

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the collection.
In fact, Owney still remains embedded intothe history and identity of the US Postal
Service.
In 2011, Owney had a popularity renaissance.
As part of it, he underwent a spa treatmentof sorts.
Taxidermist Paul Rhymer was tasked with performinga restoration of the little guy.
According to Smithsonian features by ErinBlasco and MJ Meredith, the restoration included

several steps (14:20):
First, he was washed in order to remove all the dust he’d amassed as well
as to take off remnants of paint and evenarsenic that had once been used as a preservative.
Once this was completed, his fur–which hadlooked rather matted–was all fluffed up
again.
Missing hair that would be replaced wouldalso have to be dyed to match Owney’s natural

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colors.
Then, the preserved version of Owney was comparedwith historical images and changes were made
with a new cast to alter the structure ofhis face.
This gave him a more expressive look and madehis snout more prominent.
Finally, at this point Owney was not onlywearing his famous harness, but also a jacket.
The jacket was removed, but preserved separately.

As for what’s inside Owney, Rhymer explained: “Owney is literally stuffed with excelsior. (15:02):
undefined
Excelsior is like straw but made from shavedwood.
It was once widely used as a packing material.”
Owney’s rejuvenated self was returned todisplay as part of a new exhibition unveiled
that year.
(And while he was away a so-called PhoneyOwney had taken his place.)

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But a refresh and a new exhibition wasn’tall that happened that year…it was also
the year Owney got his own Forever Stamp.
For folks outside of the United States, aforever stamp means that once you buy it,
no matter how much the price of stamps changes,you can still use it.
The Owney stamp showed an illustrated closeup of his face in profile with his name proudly
emblazoned on his collar and a backgroundmade up of his various collected tags.

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That year even contained an Owney look-alikecontest that searched the whole country for
its winner, which ended up being a roughlyfour or five year old terrier mix from California
named Bentley.
Owney continues to be a mascot for the NationalPostal Museum, with the occasional event like
the Dog Days of Summer Family Festival heldto share his story in conjunction with an

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animal adoption fair.
Of course he’s still on display–whichis again how I learned about him–and if
you visit the National Postal Museum websiteyou’ll see an animation of him asking if
you want to sign up for their newsletter.
He may have passed away well over a centuryago, but he is certainly not forgotten.
In fact, I’d argue he’s something of apatron saint for postal workers and postal

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history lovers to this day…and certainlyeveryone knows he was a very good boy.
Thank you, thank you, for joining me for thisepisode of Footnoting History.
To listen to more of our episodes about dogsvisit FootnotingHistory.com/Dog-History or
look for the Dog History playlist on our YouTubechannel.
I hope you’ll continue to join us for moreepisodes to come, and always remember…the
best stories are in the footnotes.