Bear cub in a tree, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 1956

About this postcard

A black bear cub clings to the trunk of a rough-barked tree and peers around it toward the camera against a plain sky. The printed caption reads "A BEAR CUB IN TREE IN THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK" and adds that "this little fellow looks as if he were posing for the picture." Black bears were a fixture of Smoky Mountains tourism in the middle decades of the century, when bears fed along the roadsides and drew crowds of visitors; the park later changed course and worked to keep bears wild and away from handouts. The sender wrote from St. Thomas, Ontario, about Canadian apple and peach orchards and called the card a view of Niagara Falls, the kind of mix-up that happens when cards are bought in a stack and written out on the road.