In 1947, the National Archives created a traveling museum called the Freedom Train, which stopped at 319 cities between 1947 and 1949. As part of an effort to underscore American freedoms in the post-war country, the display inside the rail cars included copies of the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, a draft of the Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson, Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the United Nations charter, documents from Germany and Japan surrender during World War II, and many more. On April 9 and 10, 1948, the train stopped in Seattle, where over 15,000 people visited the exhibit. The visitors including Ike McCoy, who was granted a day off from his 90-day sentence in the Seattle City jail to view the documents from Municipal Judge John H. Neergaard.

This photo shows the crowds meeting the train at King Street Station on April 9.

Handwritten on sleeve: FREEDOM TRAIN, Seattle.
Date photograph was filed at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (date of photograph and file date may differ by a month or more): April 11, 1948.

Caption information source: “Documents Trace America’s Heritage,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 9, 1948 and “Prisoner Sees Train, Returns Happily to Jail,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 10, 1948.