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  • Contest for look-alike post office mascot

    Contest for look-alike post office mascot
July 23, 2011

Contest for look-alike post office mascot

By TESA CULLI tesa.culli@register-news.com

BLUFORD — The Bluford Post Office is looking for an area dog that looks like a former postal service mascot.

“Owney was an unofficial postal mascot back in the 19th century, and the postal service is issuing a commemorative stamp in his honor,” explained Noelle Lamacchia, the officer in charge at the Bluford Post Office. “We want to celebrate by having a look-alike contest for Owney on (July 27) to commemorate the unveiling of the stamp.”

Residents with a dog that looks like Owney can contact the Bluford Post Office for details on how to enter it in the contest. The winner will receive a bag of doggie treats, a picture in the paper and a sheet of the new Owney stamps.

“It’s something fun to do to commemorate the new stamp,” Lamacchia said.

According to information from the National Postal Museum at the Smithsonian, Owney was a scruffy mutt who became a regular fixture at the Albany, N.Y., post office in 1888. His owner was likely a postal clerk who let the dog walk him to work. Owney was attracted to the texture and scent of the mailbags, and when his master moved away, Owney stayed with his new mail clerk friends. He soon began to follow mailbags. At first, he followed them onto mail wagons and then onto mail trains. Owney began to ride with the bags on the Railway Post Office train cars across the state, then across the country. In 1895, Owney made an around-the-world trip, traveling with mailbags on trains and steamships to Asia and across Europe, before returning to Albany, N.Y.

Railway mail clerks considered the Owney a good luck charm. At a time when train wrecks were common, no train Owney rode was ever in a wreck. The railway mail clerks adopted Owney as their unofficial mascot, marking his travels by placing medals and tags on his collar. Each time Owney returned home to Albany, the clerks there saved the tags.

Owney died in Toledo, Ohio, of a bullet wound on June 11, 1897. His body was preserved and given to the Smithsonian Institution, now on display in the National Postal Museum atrium.

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