Owney - Washington, DC
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saopaulo1
N 38° 53.848 W 077° 00.469
18S E 325881 N 4307314
A statue of Owney, the post office's mascot. This statue is located in the National Postal Museum.
Waymark Code: WM6DVD
Location: District of Columbia, United States
Date Posted: 05/18/2009
Views: 15
"Owney, also known as "Globe-trotter," was a mutt found abandoned outside an Albany, New York post office in 1888. Postal workers brought him inside, bundled him in mail bags to keep him warm, and grateful Owney began his career as the unofficial postal system dog mascot.
Over the next decade Owney traveled over 140,000 miles, once even circling the globe, following postal professionals wherever they traveled. He was outfitted with a vest to which mail clerks would pin baggage tags. "American postal workers were his family," explained the curator of the National Postal Museum. "He liked anyone who smelled like a mail bag."
On June 11, 1897, a postal worker in Toledo, Ohio was showing off Owney -- who was chained in the post office basement -- to a local newspaper reporter (or photographer). Owney, who was an old dog by now, was agitated and barking. He bit the postal worker on the hand. A retired postmaster and historian told us that the postal worker "spread the word that Owney was mad, and the Toledo postmaster summoned a police officer, who shot him, thus ending the career of the famous little dog. These are the facts."
More on Owney's end is offered by Wayne Escott: "While a postal employee was showing Owney's tags to a local reporter in Toledo, Ohio, Owney turned and bit the postal employee, who subsequently died. The postal employee who died from the bite left behind a widow and a one-year old son (my grandfather)."" (
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