TOLEDO, Ohio — There are some historical events that Toledo can lay claim to and be proud of. Others, well, maybe not so much.
The story of Owney the famous postal dog is one of the latter.
If you don’t know the story of Owney, it all started in 1888 when this scruffy Irish-Scottish Terrier took up residence in the Albany, New York post office.
It is recounted that Owney loved the scent of the mail bags and began riding in the mail wagons. Then, one day, he hopped onto a rail car and started riding the trains. This is where Owney’s legacy was carved.
Within a few years, Owney managed to travel on these cars quite extensively, and quite independently. As he appeared at various postal stations along his routes, postal employees would affix a postal tag to his harness and collar.
Owney soon became laden with hundreds of tags as he routinely traveled the United States on the rail cars. The tags got too heavy for his collar, so someone fahsioned a small vest for the dog to display his treasure of postal tags. He gained even more tags and more attention when he ventured in 1895 on an international round-the-world-trip and showed up in Japan, parts of Asia and the Middle East until he safely returned to the U.S.
In short, Owney was a star. Newspaper writers and photographers loved to get his picture and his story every time he rode into a new city. He was beloved by postal employees and members of the general public alike who wanted to get a glimpse of this famous world traveling mutt.
But not everyone loved Owney. In April of 1897, the Chicago Postmaster despised Owney’s presence on the rail cars and postal stations, calling him a mongrel cur who was nothing more than a nuisance to employees and that he should be banned from the rails. His remarks were widely reported at the time, and who knows if his sentiments were shared by others.
A few months later, on June 11, 1897, Owney made his way to Toledo from Indiana and that trip would be his last.
There are several varying accounts of what took place, but according to the Chicago Tribune, when Owney got to Toledo’s Union Station, a postal clerk called a newspaper reporter and photographer to get some pictures and a story. The clerk had chained Owney up to a post to keep him there while awaiting the arrival of the photographer. One account says that Owney detested being tied up or restrained and starting protesting loudly and when the clerk tried to get him to quiet down, Owney bit him on the hand. That action prompted the Toledo postmaster, Rudolph Brand, to call for a policeman to come to the scene and that an officer was called to the station and Owney tried to bite the policeman. After that, Owney was allegedly shot and killed. Some accounts say he was still chained to the post.
The Chicago Tribune called it an “execution." While other newspaper accounts — perhaps engaging in some damage control — said Owney had been running loose and “had gone mad” when he was shot.
We may never know exactly what happened in Toledo, or why Owney met his fate that day, but his legacy was hardly forgotten.
When word surfaced around the nation that the famous mail-pooch’s stamp had been cancelled, mail clerks in Toledo raised funds to have the cinnamon-colored terrier stuffed and preserved. Postal clerks in the area took his body to a local taxidermist who had him stuffed and mounted.
Eventually his mounted remains, wearing his vest full of postal tags, was given to the Post Office Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. It remained there, on display, until 1911, when it was transferred to the Smithsonian. Owney has been on display there in a glass case ever since.
Now, 122 years after his death in Toledo, Owney's story is revealed to thousands of visitors every year as he sadly looks back from his glass home. His amazing story — minus the tragic death in Toledo — has given rise to children's books and songs about his amazing life on the rails.
And in recent years, the U.S. Post Office finally gave Owney his due when they issued a stamp in his honor.