Just like these song lyrics promise, with the new Owney: Tales from the Rails e-book available today, you’ll never be far from Owney and his jingling tags. Owney’s story is now available online and in a free iPad app with narration and a soundtrack featuring country singer Trace Adkins. And once you hear this gem of a song, you’ll be humming along too!

Owney is joining the ranks of the beloved characters now telling their story via e-book. The adorable portrayal and animated illustrations invite readers to discover more about this globe-trotting dog. He crisscrossed the country in the 1890s riding on mail train cars and collecting tokens for his harness along the way.  His story inspired the release of an Owney postage stamp last summer. The e-book continues the great series of materials featuring Owney made available in 2011, including an exhibit, curriculum guide, and an augmented reality app. 

Never before has Owney’s story come to life in such a way—combining world-class animated illustration with standout narration and a soundtrack. The moving images and musical elements enrich the narration in ways a print book cannot. In playful color on over 60 pages, children read and hear the adventures of Owney. Narrated through contemporary eyes, the story is based on primary sources with a dash of imagination. I’m so proud that this book combines such heart and artistry with historical accuracy. Listen to the Owney song here, sung by Trace Adkins and written by Stephen Michael Schwartz.

I have always enjoyed introducing visitors to Owney when I give tours of the museum. Young and old; from near and far—they always look at me a little stunned to learn that this dog led such an adventurous life so many years ago. Now with the Tales from the Rails e-book, I can share Owney’s rich story with his friends and fans around the world. I read it with my friend five-year-old friend Ella this weekend to much enjoyment. I also gave her dog, Mr. Darcy, a chance to browse the story, but he seemed more interested in dreaming of his own adventures than reading about Owney’s. Perhaps it is a story better explored with the people in my life, rather than the dogs. 

Share Owney's e-book with a kid (or dog) in your life. Follow Owney's ongoing adventures by "liking"  him on Facebook or following him on Twitter.

This is the first in a series looking at some items in the museum that, at first glance, seem quite out of place in a postal museum.

One of the largest items in the museum's collection is a White Company-manufactured bus. While a postal museum may not seem the most natural fit, this is a very special bus. It is the first bus built and used for the Highway Post Office service. This new service began in 1941 in response to declines in railway service in selected areas of the country.

The bus ran its first route on February 10, 1941, traveling on a route between Washington, D.C., and Harrisonburg, Virginia. Two more routes were set up that year, one between South Bend and Indianapolis, Indiana, on May 3, 1941, and one between San Francisco and Pacific Grove, California on August 4, 1941. There were troubles with an International Harvester-manufactured bus used on the second route, but for the most part the buses performed their duties well, funding and support for the service were soon overshadowed by military demands following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December.

Each bus's interior design was based on that of the railway post office cars it was replacing. These photographs are from the White-manufactured bus in the museum’s collection. Like the railway postal clerks before them, the clerks processed and sorted mail on the bus while it was moving from town to town.

According to the highway post office clerks, working on the bus was harder on their bodies than life in the train car. While trains moved with a rather steady rhythm, the bus suffered the rigors of America’s burgeoning road and highway system. From potholes and poorly maintained roads to traffic stops and starts. HPO clerks often bore the “proof” of this work in a multitude of bruises, as their bodies banged against the racks and tables lining the bus.

During the first years of the service the Post Office Department provided drivers as well as sorting clerks for the HPO buses. Later, drivers were hired by contractors who also furnished the buses used on the various routes. To ensure the mail’s security, the driver’s section was separated by a locked gate during each trip.

With their stylishly patriotic red, white and blue paint jobs, Highway Post Office buses were common sights along the rapidly expanding highways of the 1950s and 1960s. Highway mail routes generally served an average of 25 post offices directly and many others indirectly through Star Route and railway mail connections. These buses traveled thousands of miles to provide consistent mail delivery service to large areas.  For each route, a spare coach was kept on hand to replace any bus which was unfortunate enough to run into trouble. In order to minimize the number of garages for HPOs, the routes were set up so that two or more routes radiated from a single city. This method also meant
that only one spare coach had to be kept on hand in case of accidents.

As the United States was growing, use of the highway system was growing as well. As highways grew, fewer passengers rode the trains. As fewer people rode trains, railway companies cut their routes. As railway companies cut their routes, the Post Office Department moved more of their railway mail routes to HPO buses.

The changing character of cities and of the mail itself eventually led to the death of the Highway Post Office. Business mail, once a small portion of all correspondence, had grown to 80 percent of the total volume of mail in 1963. Centralization of both business accounts and social centers highlighted mechanization problems in the system that was addressed by the presidentially appointed Advisory Board of the Post Office Department in June 1962. The advice of this board was to adopt a coding system for the mail, requiring a complete reorganization of the postal system already in place. The adoption and expansion of the "Metro system," with its ZIP codes (1963) and sectional centers (1960), spelled the end for the Highway Post Office system. Although the bus in the Postal Museum's collection was decommissioned in the 1960s, the Highway Post Office service ran until June 30, 1974.

This is the first in a series of blogs spotlighting items and stories from America’s postal workers.

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) service began in 1896 and continues today. Rural carriers function a little differently from city letter carriers. For one thing, rural carriers are required to use their own vehicles to make their daily rounds. For another, rural carriers have, from the beginning, provided their patrons with more than just the day’s mail. They carry stamps, stamped envelopes, money orders, and other items that are more commonly found in a post office. This has led rural carriers’ vehicles to be nicknamed “post offices on wheels.”

Carriers often purchased metal cash boxes to keep money and other valuables safe and secure during their daily rounds. Many RFD cash boxes had storage compartments and shelves. All could be secured with a padlock, also to be purchased by the carrier.


The brass plaque on the front of this cash box from the museum’s collections bears the name of “John Goudy R.L.C. [rural letter carrier] No. 6.” Goudy served as a rural carrier in Steuben, Indiana during the first decades of the 20th century. The cash box was manufactured by Charles Boyer of Marengo, Illinois, probably between 1904-1918. This box was just a sideline in Boyer’s work. Boyer was an enthusiastic inventor, with patents for adjustable stovepipes and clothesline reels to his credit. But Boyer’s main focus was in the field of vacuum cleaning. His “plunger-type” vacuum design (patented in 1911) was an important step in the development of the modern vacuum cleaner.

Progam material example.

Sponsored by the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, the American Philatelic Society and the American Stamp Dealers Association, the pilot program currently has 60 third through fifth grade teachers who have agreed to use stamps   in their  classrooms to teach one or more subjects. At the end of the pilot program, teachers will complete a short survey to evaluate the program’s effectiveness.

Lesson plans and the Stamp Ventures learning center support classroom instruction in language arts, mathematics, social studies and science. Additional subjects will be added based upon teacher feedback. Students use colorful postage stamps to complete projects that reinforce the lessons being taught by their teachers. The stamps enable students visualize the subjects and assist in remembering what they have learned.

The "Stamps Teach" pilot program is still open for additional teachers.Click here for more information about this free program available on the American Philatelic Society’s website!

You may also contact Gretchen Moody at Gretchen@stamps.org.

Click here:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NPMBlogSurvey.

Thanks so much!