Titanic museum boasts titanic postal history

A few weeks ago, we spent a week in eastern Tennessee during the Feast of Tabernacles. While there, my wife and I paid a visit to Titanic Pigeon Forge, which if for no other reason stands out in the Pigeon Forge/Sevierville area simply for not being a dinner show.

When you enter the museum, you are handed a random “boarding pass” that has the name and a short bio of one of the individuals who was on board the Titanic on its fateful voyage. I’m sure you can imagine my delight at being handed a card for Oscar Woody, one of the mail clerks who worked on board the ship!

The museum has hundreds of artifacts ranging from photos to bits of wood from the ship that were found floating on the surface of the ocean after it slipped under the waves. Of particular note to philatelists, however, are a number of letters and post cards mailed by various passengers either just before or in the days immediately following the Titanic’s sinking. The museum unfortunately forbids photography, so I don’t have any pictures to share, but seeing some of that material firsthand was quite an experience.

Sarah and I had only a little more than an hour to explore, but we enjoyed our visit. The presence of philatelic material was the cherry on top!

Published 2015-10-21