Please Don’t Feed the Bear
This Union Pacific System Pictorial Post Card is unused.
The back reads:
Yellowstone National Park is the greatest of wild animal refuges.
Best reached by the Union Pacific via West Yellowstone Station,
directly on the park boundary.
Any ideas on the age of the card? I love the knickers and boots.
And they wonder why folks still insist on getting up close
and personal with the wild animals…
December 13th, 2004 at 1:04 pm
We have a picture of my grandmother in a similar knickered outfit on top of Pikes Peak. She was born in 1908 and she looks to be in her late teens in the picture. From Linn
December 13th, 2004 at 3:56 pm
Wow Linn - what a treasure that sounds like!
December 15th, 2004 at 12:59 am
Great postcard. I love that the woman is gingerly leaning over to feed the bear and the man behind her seems to be giving her a shove. The postcard seems to be saying, “come to Yellowstone, we let you feed the bears.”
December 18th, 2004 at 2:08 pm
I thought that I was the only one who thought that the guy was evil.
“Go on, honey, give him another morsel.”
wink, wink, nudge, nudge…
December 21st, 2004 at 5:19 pm
As to the age of the card, it’s got to be at least 50 years old–since it’s been that long since the UP ran passenger trains to West Yellowstone. (The depot is now the Museum of the Yellowstone.) I’d venture that the card is probably from the late 20’s or early 30’s (although that is a SWAG–Scientific Wild-Ass Guess).
Haven’t been to the park is a while (when I come up from AZ every summer, I make it a point to bypass West Yellowstone since they have a sales tax), but I suppose the black bears are still stopping traffic mooching for Mars bars.
KD, Kizmai, AZ