Image ID:  FHS3256
Image Date:   1950
Image Title:   [The "real" Smokey Bear standing on hood of plane, 1950.]
Image Caption:   Caption 1: No. 2 -- Nursed back to health under the watchful eye of Ray Bell, warden of the New Mexico Game and Fish Commission, Smokey stands on the plane that flew him from the Lincoln National Forest to Santa Fe for emergency treatment of his burns.

Caption 2: [New Mexico Game Warden Ray Bell looks on as the "real" Smokey Bear stands on a Piper Cub plane with "State of New Mexico Dept. of Game & Fish" seal on the side.]

[This image is one of many promotional photos taken of Smokey in 1950 (see also FHS image ID# FHS3253-3254 and FHS3257-3263). Bell served as caretaker for this bear cub after he was injured in the 1950 Capitan Gap fire in New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest. The cub was named "Smokey Bear" after the character created in 1944 by the Forest Service and the Advertising Council, and donated by the Forest Service to the National Zoo in Washington, DC where he remained until his death in 1976.]
Photographer:   [Walters, Harold D., for the U.S. Forest Service]
Use Restrictions:   Permission from the Forest History Society required for any use of this image.
Repository Contact Information:   Forest History Society, Inc.; 701 William Vickers Ave., Durham, NC 27701; Tel.: (919) 682-9319; Fax: (919) 682-2349.