National Park License Plate Toppers: The Bumper Souvenirs of the 1930s to 1950s

Drive any American road and you'll see cars wearing national park decals, stickers, magnets, plate frames and even state-issued park license plates. The habit of advertising where your car has been goes back to license plate toppers in the 1920s and 1930s — and national parks, among the country's favorite destinations, quickly joined in.

Souvenirs, not permits

From 1917 to 1940, the National Park Service issued windshield stickers at some parks to show a car had paid its entrance fee. Toppers were different: the NPS didn't make them, and they served no official purpose. They were souvenirs, bought to tell others where a driver had been.

Campers in a national park; the car on the left has a topper advertising Springfield below its license plate. NPS History Collection

Toppers advertised all sorts of things: oil companies, service stations, grocery stores, chicken feed; police and fire chiefs, doctors, nurses and pharmacists — sometimes to dodge speeding or parking tickets; public safety, presidential elections, the armed forces, auto clubs and the Forest Service's fire-prevention messages. As Americans traveled farther from home, they became boosters for cities, attractions and parks.

Hard to date

Few toppers carry a maker's name, and collectors' sites call them just "vintage." Park history helps. Kings Canyon National Park was established in 1940 and merged administratively into Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks three years later — so its toppers most likely date from that short window.

Yellowstone Park topper, about the 1930s; later versions have a blue sky and blue lettering instead of green. NPS History Collection

The NPS History Collection holds three. The Yellowstone and Carlsbad Caverns toppers are enameled steel, with no maker's marks, in designs used for years with color changes. Yellowstone had more than a dozen topper designs; most parks had at least two, from roughly the 1930s through the 1950s. Collector and auction sites show toppers for dozens of parks, among them:

Carlsbad Caverns topper, about the 1930s. NPS History Collection

Who made them

Only three makers turn up on park toppers; the artists are unknown, and firms probably manufactured designs to order.

Topper for the Gateway Inn at Mount Rainier, by the Advertising Plates Company, about the 1950s. NPS History Collection

Some toppers advertised gateway communities. The collection's third is an aluminum one for the Gateway Inn, founded in 1924 near Mount Rainier's Nisqually entrance; its style matches others from the 1950s.

Toppers faded after the 1950s and were mostly replaced by license plate frames by the 1980s. The NPS History Collection welcomes examples and information from anyone who has them.

Sources

Based on "50 Nifty Finds #47: Bumper Views," National Park Service, NPS History Collection; a work of the United States government in the public domain.