f e at u r e d pa r k s

DID YOU KNOW THAT A VILLAGE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GRAND CANYON EATS MOST OF ITS MAIL

Or that one of Americarsquos newest national park units was once so secret it used multiple undercover addresses Trailblazing 100 Years of Our National Parks a twenty-one-month exhibition at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum chronicles these and numerous other intersections between the mail and our national parks Featuring original postage stamp art from the United States Postal Service and artifacts loaned by the National Park Service Trailblazing explores the myriad and sometimes surprising ways that mail moves to through and from our national parks

This gallery guide was designed to help you make the most of your visit to Trailblazing Four bonus items are added to an extended Curatorrsquos Trail and there are directions to help you find related material on display in the museumrsquos other galleries There is a complete list of all the National Park Service sites featured in the exhibitionmdashhow many can you find The inside of your gallery guide folds out into a glorious souvenir exhibition poster

Afterward extend your experience by picking up one of the books listed in the For Further Reading section or visiting the exhibitionrsquos companion website at httppostalmuseum siedutrailblazing Blaze your own trail to one of our national parks using the resources found at httpfindyourparkcom

ALABAMA Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site

ARIZONA Grand Canyon National Park Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site Petrified Forest National Park

ARKANSAS Hot Springs National Park

CALIFORNIA Joshua Tree National Park Manzanar National Historic Site Sequoia National Park Yosemite National Park

COLORADO Rocky Mountain National Park

FLORIDA Everglades National Park

GEORGIA Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park

HAWAII Hawaii Volcanoes National Park World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument

IDAHO Minidoka National Historic Site

MAINE Acadia National Park

MARYLAND Clara Barton National Historic Site Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine

MASSACHUSETTS Boston National Historical Park

MONTANA Glacier National Park

NEBRASKA Agate Fossil Beds National Monument

NEW MEXICO Manhattan Project National Historical Park

NEW YORK amp NEW JERSEY Statue of Liberty National Monument

NORTH CAROLINA Cape Hatteras National Seashore Cape Lookout National Seashore

Smithsonian National Postal Museum Next to Union Station 2 Massachusetts Ave NE Washington DC 20013

Open daily 10 am to 530 pm

WWWPOSTALMUSEUMSI EDUTRAILBLAZING

OREGON Crater Lake National Park

PENNSYLVANIA Eisenhower National Historic Site Gettysburg National Military Park Independence National Historical Park

PUERTO RICO San Juan National Historic Site

SOUTH DAKOTA Wind Cave National Park

TENNESSEE Great Smoky Mountains National Park Shiloh National Military Park

TEXAS Big Bend National Park

UTAH Natural Bridges National Monument

VIRGINIA Colonial National Historical Park Fort Monroe National Monument George Washington Memorial Parkway

(US Marine Corps War Memorial) Shenandoah National Park Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts

WASHINGTON Mount Rainier National Park

WASHINGTON DC Frederick Douglass National Historic Site Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site White House

WYOMING Devils Tower National Monument Grand Teton National Park Yellowstone National Park (also partly in Montana and Idaho)

GALLERY GUIDE

JUNE 9 2016 through MARCH 25 2018

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM WILLIAM H GROSS STAMP GALLERY

WWWPOSTALMUSEUMSI EDUTRAILBLAZING

The creation of Shenandoah National Park involved removing entire families and even towns from within the new parkrsquos boundaries Between 1927 and 1937 the Commonwealth of Virginia condemned and purchased land in eight counties and transferred it to the federal government for the park Most residents went quietly even willingly The Virginia Piedmont was in the midst of a prolonged drought that had destroyed family farm and orchards and owners were glad for the opportunity to start over somewhere else

Some residents however resisted the destruction of their communities and pursued their grievances in the courts Their fate was sealed in October 1935 when the US Supreme Court declined to hear their case clearing the way for forced removals at gunpoint and the razing of homes and villages some of whichmdashsuch as Old Rag Beahm and Oakton Hollowmdashincluded post offices Many of the displaced mountain residents and their descendants blamed this maltreatment on park boosters such as George Freeman Pollock the sender of this envelope

STONY MAN CAMP COVER circa 1894 ndash1903

Hot Springs National Park is one of the most distinctive National Park Service sites in the country The smallest national park by area it is also the only one located in an urban downtown area Some sources contend that it is the oldest national park too because it was created in 1832mdashforty years before Yellowstone However Congress did not formally convert the Hot Springs Reservation (as it was then known) into a national park until 1921 so official National Park Service chronologies use that date

One thing that is not disputed however is that a post office has operated continuously at Hot Springs National Park since it was created in 1832 giving it one of the longest postal histories of any US national park Hiram A Whittington the first postmaster operated the post office and general store out of what one early traveler described as ldquowretched-looking log cabinrdquo The Hot Springs post office was taken over by the Confederacy in 1861 and functioned throughout the war including a brief period from MarchndashJuly of 1862 when the city served as the Arkansas state capital

As the National Park Service approached its golden anniversary in 1966 the agencyrsquos leadership took interest in updating its visual identitymdashwhat we today would call branding They replaced or supplemented

rustic structures designed by government architects in the 1930s with modernistic buildings planned by professional firms The new parks style was known as ldquoMission 66rdquo and many examples are still in use today (A typical Mission 66 structure is Petrified Forest National Parkrsquos post office shown in a photograph near the flagpole in the large exhibit gallery)

The Interior Department also hired a noted New York graphic design firm to redesign the National Park Servicersquos arrowhead logo which dated from 1951 When the new lsquotriangles and cannonballsrsquo symbol appeared on the 1966 National Park Service stamp many postal patrons and collectors mistakenly blamed the post office for the uninspiring design The new logo fell out of use quickly and would probably be totally forgotten today if it hadnrsquot appeared on nearly 120 million postage stamps

5cent NATIONAL PARK SERVICE ISSUE DIE PROOF SCOTT USA 1314 (1966)

Extended Curatorrsquos Trail

HOT SPRINGS ARKANSAS RESORT ADVERTISING COVER 1876ndash1895

Fort Monroersquos significance as a national monument runs deeper than its history as the only Union fort during the American Civil War to be completely surrounded by Confederate territory Early in the war the fortrsquos commander Major General Benjamin Butler decreed that escaped slaves reaching his headquarters would be considered ldquocontraband of warrdquo and freed This decision sometimes called the Fort Monroe Doctrine turned the outpost into a magnet for thousands of runaway slaves

In addition to carrying out military operations the Army was faced with housing feeding and clothing the former slaves at a facility known as The Great Contraband Camp Butler brought in northern teachers to instruct the children in reading and writing and men were trained in sentry duty digging trenches building field defenses such as pickets and basic road and bridge construction

FORT MONROE UNION NAVAL COVER 1862

ANSEL ADAMSrsquoS STAMP ALBUM Learn about more famous stamp collectors in Connect with US Stamps on Level 2

YELLOWSTONE HOTEL OWNEY TAG Learn more about Owney the Dog in Mail by Rail on Level 1

ORIGINS OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS

$1 TRAILER PERMIT STAMP ON LICENSE Learn more about revenue stamps in National Stamp Salon frames 176ndash186 on Level 2

TOURISM

WORLD WAR I lsquoSAFE RETURNrsquo POSTCARD See more mail from American wars in the Mail Call exhibition on Level 1 USS ARIZONA AND USS OKLAHOMA COVERS See postal marking devices salvaged from the wreck of USS Oklahoma in the National Stamp Salon on Level 2 and the Mail Call exhibition on Level 1 See a piece of mail postmarked at Honolulu Hawaii on December 7 1941 in National Stamp Salon frame 168 on Level 2

NATIONAL MONUMENTS

ldquoB FREE FRANKLINrdquo CANCEL See an original ldquoB Free Franklinrdquo letter from 1765 that inspired this postmark in National Stamp Salon frame 1 on Level 2 LIBERTY BELL CIVIL WAR PATRIOTIC COVER See more Civil War-era Union patriotic covers in National Stamp Salon frame 15 on Level 2 MANHATTAN PROJECT COVER See another Manhattan Project cover in National Stamp Salon frame 169 on Level 2

NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARKS

LIEUTENANT COLONEL NOEL F PARRISH COVER See a cover mailed by a Tuskegee Airman in Mail Marks History frame 17 on Level 2 COVER ADDRESSED TO TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE See a 1956 stamp picturing Booker T Washingtonrsquos birthplace in National Stamp Salon frame 173 on Level 2

NATIONAL HISTORIC SITES

IWO JIMA WORLD WAR II PATRIOTIC COVER See more World War II patriotic covers in National Stamp Salon frame 170 on Level 2 3cent IWO JIMA (MARINES ISSUE) SIGNED BLOCK OF FOUR See more of the Malcolm MacGregor collection of autographs on stamps in Stamps Around the Globe frames 76ndash85 on Level 2

PARKS IN YOUR BACKYARD

AUTOGRAPHED NATIONAL PARKS YEAR ISSUE IMPERFORATE PRESS SHEET See more autographed National Parks Year Issue material including a complete set of Farleyrsquos Follies sheets in National Stamp Salon frames 137ndash150 on Level 2

THE NEW DEAL

FIND THE FOLLOWING RELATED CONTENT ELSEWHERE IN THE NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM

E XPL ORE

ADULTS Gloryland A Novel by Shelton Johnson (2009) Fictional story of a South Carolina sharecropperrsquos son who walks to Nebraska joins one of the US Cavalryrsquos all-black ldquoBuffalo Soldierrdquo regiments and is posted to Yosemite National Park in 1903

Ranger Confidential Living Working and Dying in the National Parks by Andrea Lankford (2010) A behind-the-scenes tell-all look at daily life in the national parks by a former park ranger

Uncertain Path A Search for the Future of National Parks by William C Tweed (2011) During a 240-mile hike through the Sierra Nevada forty-year park ranger Bill Tweed mediates on what the future might hold for the national parks

KIDS Mule Train Mail by Craig Brown (4ndash8 years grades Kndash3) Anthony Paya wears a cowboy hat chaps and spurs and leads a train of mules on a daily three-hour trek down into the Grand Canyon to bring mail to the townspeople of Supai

The Camping Trip that Changed America by Barb Rosenstock Illustrations by Mordicai Gerstein (6ndash8 years grades 1ndash3) Camping in Yosemite by themselves during 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir see sights and have talks that ultimately lead to the establishment of our National Parks

FURTHER reading

P h o t o m u r a l s

The full-color murals feature photographs of National Park Service sites from the Carol M Highsmith Archive at the Library of Congress

Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site Washington DC

Statue of Liberty National Monument New York

Grand Canyon National Park Arizona

Glacier National Park Montana

Statue of Captain John Smith Colonial National Historical Park Jamestown Virginia

Union Battery Shiloh National Military Park Tennessee

Cape Hatteras National Seashore North Carolina

Joshua Tree National Park California

VISIT THE EXHIBITIONrsquoS WEBSITE FOR ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS