In the early 1940s the U.S. Forest Service asked Rudolph Wendelin to supervise the artwork of its forest-fighting campaign, thus making Wendelin the best-known artist of the beloved Smokey Bear. From 1944 to 1973 he served as 'caretaker' of the famous bear. The artist was born in 1910 in nearby Herndon and grew up in Ludell. He died in 2000 and is buried in the small Immanuel Cemetery in the second row.

Smokey Bear image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WhiteBook