Smokey’s Fan Mail

The first Smokey Bear poster was created by Artist Rudolph Wendelin in 1944. But the real Smokey Bear, originally named Hotfoot, was a cub rescued by firefighters in 1950, during the 17,000-acre forest fire in New Mexico’s Capitan Gap. Smokey garnered so much public attention that he was eventually given his own zip code to accommodate the amount of mail he received.