Philadelphia Zoo Bolivar The elephant at Philadelphia Zoo 1888-1908

What a terrible end he came to. Unlike all the others, he seemed to be happy with life. Barnum gave it the spin that Jumbo was saving Tiny Tim's life, which may have been true, but to meet one's end being hit by a locomotive is really grim.

I never know what you elephant folk may know of, so I just pass on things I know of. I've read about the Elephant Hotel in many sources, and in addition to being the British slang for masturbating, "seeing the elephant" really became a phrase about seeing this incredible work. To choose to build a building in the shape of an elephant is just remarkable. 130 years later with all the technology acquired in the interim, and no one is attempting it today. There's a much smaller version south of Atlantic City that I've seen, and it's still very impressive:

Lucy the Elephant
Lucy the Elephant - Wikipedia

There's also a charming 1962 movie musical with Jimmy Durante, Doris Day, Martha Raye, and Stephen Boyd modeled on the huge 1935 Broadway musical that had to be staged in the huge 5,000-seat Hippodrome. It features great songs by Rodgers and Hart, but is still seldom seen anywhere but Turner Classic Movies (except in my own cd and video collections lol):

Jumbo (musical) - Wikipedia

Billy Rose's Jumbo - Wikipedia
 
AmbikaFan said:
I knew this, but there's something about the way you state this so matter-of-factly that's very powerful. Animals were/are considered property. The CPZ elephant, Gunda, and of course Topsy, who was electrocuted to a paying crowd at Coney Island, were just property, not living beings. Snyder is right that the circuses were responsible for bringing them here and then "gifting" them to zoos when they became unmanageable, but zoos at this time were hardly above reproach. In addition to having Gunda shot, Hornaday was notoriously responsible for exhibiting a Mbuti Congo human dwarf named Ota Benga in the Primate House for years. Benga later shot himself, the same fate as the Pachyderm "oddities." They were all animals, just property.
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Gunda was a Bronx resident.

And speaking of the Bronx Zoo, I'm looking for people with an insane knowledge of the establishment and some halfway decent art skills to help with a little project I've been cooking up.
 
I hope this isn't too tangential to the main and important theme of this thread, which I very much appreciate. A family story was passed down to me that my grandfather, a prominent doctor in Philadelphia who was chief bacteriologist there, had done an autopsy on a popular elephant at the Philadelphia Zoo and that a photograph of him atop the body of the elephant had appeared. From other sources, I know that he served on veterinary committees at that Zoo and did autopsies, I just never have found the picture or details on his actual autopsy of an elephant. Bolivar, I believe, was the only elephant to die at the Philadelphia Zoo (the year was 1908) after my grandfather became a doctor (about 1900) and before he died (1938). My grandfather was Dr. Courtland Yardley White Jr, and often went by Dr. C.Y. White Jr. Though the record says Bolivar died "of age", this thread suggests he was much abused which is very sad.
 
Peter White said:
I hope this isn't too tangential to the main and important theme of this thread, which I very much appreciate. A family story was passed down to me that my grandfather, a prominent doctor in Philadelphia who was chief bacteriologist there, had done an autopsy on a popular elephant at the Philadelphia Zoo and that a photograph of him atop the body of the elephant had appeared. From other sources, I know that he served on veterinary committees at that Zoo and did autopsies, I just never have found the picture or details on his actual autopsy of an elephant. Bolivar, I believe, was the only elephant to die at the Philadelphia Zoo (the year was 1908) after my grandfather became a doctor (about 1900) and before he died (1938). My grandfather was Dr. Courtland Yardley White Jr, and often went by Dr. C.Y. White Jr. Though the record says Bolivar died "of age", this thread suggests he was much abused which is very sad.
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Bolivar passed on July 31st 1908. Females Empress & Mary were the only ones to pass within that time from 1908 until 1938. Empress passed in 1914 and Mary in 1924. The Penrose Building is where the zoo did most of its animal autopsies. However, for elephants as large as Bolivar, it would've been done on-site in his stall in the Frank Furness elephant house. If you can find the photo that'd be great! It may have been in a newspaper or on an archive site?
 
Have to be "that person" for a second. An animal autopsy is called a necropsy. Autopsies are only for humans.
 
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