Smokey Bear Historical Park

State Historic Park In The Village Of Capitan Holding The Grave Of The Original Smokey Bear, A Cub Rescued From A 1950 Wildfire In The Capitan Mountains Who Then Lived 26 Years At The National Zoo · Capitan, New Mexico

In May 1950 a wildfire burned through the Capitan Mountains and a crew found a badly burned black bear cub clinging to a scorched tree. He was flown to Santa Fe, treated, and given to the National Zoo in Washington, where he lived until 1976 and received so much mail that the Postal Service gave him his own zip code. The Smokey Bear fire prevention character already existed as a poster from 1944; the cub made him real, and it is one of the few cases where a piece of government advertising acquired an actual animal. When he died he was flown home and buried here, in a one-acre state historic park in the village of Capitan with a small museum, a garden planted with New Mexico vegetation zones, and a boulder over the grave. It is a genuinely odd and rather affecting place, and most visitors arrive not knowing the bear existed at all. The village around it has leaned into him entirely, and it is twenty minutes from Lincoln and a few miles from Fort Stanton, which makes a good day in a part of the state nobody visits.

118 West Smokey Bear Boulevard, Capitan, Capitan, New Mexico, 88316, United States

Open most days through the middle of the day and afternoon, with at least one weekday closure in most seasons and reduced winter hours, and closed on several state holidays. The garden and the grave are within the fenced site and are reached through the visitor centre, so they are not accessible outside opening hours. The village around it is small and several of its own businesses close on Sundays and Mondays.

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