Theft of Walter Oehrle Old Faithful Bear Pit paintings

Many of you are familiar with the Union Pacific Bears images of Yellowstone National Park as well as the cartoonlike bears images that today grace the Old Faithful Inn dining room and Bear Pit Bar in the form of glass panels. These bear images are well known to Yellowstone afficionadoes.

Both the Union Pacific Bears and the Bear Pit images were originally painted in the 1920s and 1930s by artist Walter Oehrle (pronounced EARLY) and were published in a small pamphlet that was given away by the Yellowstone Park Company. They were rendered into woodcuts, which graced the inside of the Bear Pit Lounge at Old Faithful Inn for many years. A couple of these woodcuts are still on the walls of the Old Faithful Inn Snack Shop. During a recent remodeling, the images were redone in cut glass, and today they appear on the walls of the Old Faithful dining room and Bear Pit Lounge.

Recently Walter Oehrle's original eleven Bear Pit paintings were STOLEN from the residence of Dan Fey of Seattle, a descendant of Oehrle's. There are eleven paintings, each rendered in brown and white (two-tone) on cardboard, each about 20 inches by 24 inches in size.

As you might imagine, the owner is quite upset about this theft and has the Seattle police fully involved. Should anyone encounter these images or information on their whereabouts, please email Dan Fey at dfey@seakingwdc.org or call him at (206) 329-6525 (home) or (206) 448-0474 (work).

These images may eventually be offered on Ebay to collectors, to a rare book or art dealer, or to a library or archives. PLEASE BE ON THE ALERT FOR ANY OF THESE IMAGES. Yellowstone collectors are likely to be in the group of people to whom they may be offered. A copy of this message will be placed in the Yellowstone National Park History Archives so that those who come after us can know of the theft in case the perpetrator waits for many years to "unload" the materials.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ANY FRIENDS YOU MAY HAVE WHO ARE RARE BOOK OR ART DEALERS, ARCHIVISTS, LIBRARIANS, OR YELLOWSTONE COLLECTORS, any of whom could be offered a chance to purchase these stolen materials.

Lee H. Whittlesey
Park Historian, National Park Service
Yellowstone Center for Resources
P.O. Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

[Forwarded by Bob Spude and Kyle Wyatt]