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 America’s 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 Curator’s
Trail, and there are directions to help you find
related material on display in the museum’s
other galleries. There is a complete list of all
the National Park Service sites featured in the
exhibition—how 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 exhibition’s
companion website at http://postalmuseum.
si.edu/trailblazing. Blaze your own trail to one of
our national parks using the resources found at
http://findyourpark.com.
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
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
(U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial)
Shenandoah National Park
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
WASHINGTON
MAINE
Mount Rainier National Park
MARYLAND
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site
White House
Acadia National Park
Clara Barton National Historic Site
Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston National Historical Park
MONTANA
Glacier National Park
GALLERY
GUIDE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
WYOMING
Devils Tower National Monument
Grand Teton National Park
Yellowstone National Park
(also partly in Montana and Idaho)
NEBRASKA
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
NEW MEXICO
Manhattan Project National Historical Park
NEW YORK & 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 5:30 pm
W W W. POSTALMUSEUM . SI. EDU/TR AILBL A ZING
JUNE 9, 2016 through MARCH 25, 2018
SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM
WILLIAM H. GROSS STAMP GALLERY
W W W.POSTALMUSEUM.SI.EDU/TRAILBLA ZING
E XPL ORE
FIND THE FOLLOWING RELATED CONTENT
ELSEWHERE IN THE NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM.
ORIGINS OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS
YELLOWSTONE HOTEL OWNEY TAG
Learn more about Owney the Dog in Mail by Rail on Level 1.
ANSEL ADAMS’S STAMP ALBUM
Learn about more famous stamp collectors in Connect
with U.S. Stamps on Level 2.
TOURISM
$1 TRAILER PERMIT STAMP ON LICENSE
Learn more about revenue stamps in National Stamp Salon
frames 176–186 on Level 2.
THE NEW DEAL
AUTOGRAPHED NATIONAL PARKS YEAR ISSUE
IMPERFORATE PRESS SHEET
See more autographed National Parks Year Issue material,
including a complete set of Farley’s Follies sheets, in
National Stamp Salon frames 137–150 on Level 2.
NATIONAL MONUMENTS
WORLD WAR I ‘SAFE RETURN’ 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.
Extended Curator’s Trail
5¢ NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
ISSUE DIE PROOF
SCOTT USA 1314 (1966)
As the National Park Service
approached its golden
anniversary in 1966, the
agency’s leadership took
interest in updating its visual
identity—what 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 “Mission 66,” and many examples
are still in use today. (A typical Mission 66 structure is Petrified
Forest National Park’s 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 Service’s arrowhead
logo, which dated from 1951. When the new ‘triangles and
cannonballs’ 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 hadn’t
appeared on nearly 120 million postage stamps.
NATIONAL HISTORIC SITES
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. Washington’s
birthplace in National Stamp Salon frame 173 on Level 2.
NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARKS
“B FREE FRANKLIN” CANCEL
See an original “B Free Franklin” 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.
PARKS IN YOUR BACKYARD
IWO JIMA WORLD WAR II PATRIOTIC COVER
See more World War II patriotic covers in National Stamp
Salon frame 170 on Level 2.
3¢ 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
76–85 on Level 2.
F URT H E R r e a d i ng
FORT MONROE UNION
NAVAL COVER
1862
Fort Monroe’s 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 fort’s
commander, Major General Benjamin Butler, decreed that
escaped slaves reaching his headquarters would be considered
“contraband of war” 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.
HOT SPRINGS, ARKANSAS
RESORT ADVERTISING COVER
1876–1895
STONY MAN
CAMP COVER
circa 1894 –1903
The creation of Shenandoah National Park involved removing
entire families and even towns from within the new park’s
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 U.S. Supreme Court
declined to hear their case, clearing the way for forced removals
at gunpoint and the razing of homes and villages, some of
which—such as Old Rag, Beahm, and Oakton Hollow—included
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.
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 1832—forty 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 U.S. national park. Hiram A. Whittington, the first postmaster,
operated the post office and general store out of what one early
traveler described as “wretched-looking log cabin.” The Hot
Springs post office was taken over by the Confederacy in 1861
and functioned throughout the war, including a brief period
from March–July of 1862 when the city served as the Arkansas
state capital.
VISIT THE EXHIBITION’S WEBSITE FOR
ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS.
ADULTS
Gloryland: A Novel by Shelton Johnson (2009).
Fictional story of a South Carolina sharecropper’s son who walks to
Nebraska, joins one of the U.S. Cavalry’s all-black “Buffalo Soldier”
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. (4–8 years, grades K–3)
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.
(6–8 years, grades 1–3)
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.
Photomurals
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, D.C.
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