Posted on May 15, 2019
The Town That Hanged An Elephant Is Now Working To Save Them
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TSgt Joe C. PO3 Steven Sherrill CW3 Kevin Storm SSG (Join to see) SGM Steve Wettstein SMSgt Thor Merich MSG (Join to see) PO1 John Johnson MAJ Ken Landgren LTC Greg Henning PVT Mark Zehner MSG Tom Earley Alan K. SPC Mark Huddleston PO1 H Gene Lawrence SGT Elizabeth Scheck Sgt Deborah Cornatzer SSgt Boyd Herrst SPC Diana D. SFC George Smith
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Thank you, my friend CW5 Jack Cardwell for posting the news that Elizabethton, Tennessee "teacher Tim Wasem; students Caleb Miller, Jaxton Holly, John Gouge and Deanna Hull; and teacher Alex Campbell won the NPR Student Podcast Challenge."
They developed at 11 minute podcast in an effort to change the narrative on Erwin, Tenn which was infamous for hanging elephant Mary in 1916 to be town that honored elephants and actually displayed 8 fiberglass elephants made by local artists which were placed throughout the town and auctioned off.
https://soundcloud.com/user-352618310/murderous-mary-the-rise-of
"Beginning in 2016, the 100th anniversary of Mary's hanging, Erwin began what it hoped would become an annual ritual: a weeklong series of events to celebrate elephants. That first year, the town paid nearly $9,000 for local artists to paint eight fiberglass elephants. They were displayed all over town and then auctioned off."
Image: In this 1916 photo, Mary the elephant hangs from the crane in Erwin, Tenn.
1. Recent interest:
"At the Unicoi County Chamber of Commerce, Cathy Huskins remembers one particularly angry tourist "came barreling through the door, and came up to the counter here and slung her hands down. ... And she says, 'I cannot believe that you killed an elephant!' "
Librarian Angie Georgeff is used to the strange phone calls and unannounced visits from world travelers:
"They just want to know, 'Is it true? Is it true? Did it really happen?' " Georgeff says. "Well, it did really happen. You know, there's agreement about that."
2. Background on the 1916 confrontation. When Mary the elephant took revenge and stomped on the head of her tormentor.
""Kill the elephant!"
In the fall of 1916, disaster struck when the circus came to East Tennessee.
A menagerie of animals from Sparks Circus paraded through the small town of Kingsport, Tenn., just a few miles from the Virginia border. The show's star attraction, a five-ton Asian elephant named Mary, suddenly stopped. She had noticed a pile of watermelon rinds and veered off course for a snack.
Riding on Mary's back was a new trainer, a man who had been a hotel bellhop just a few days before, and he struck Mary in the head with a large metal hook. In an instant, the elephant wrapped her trunk around the man and threw him into a drink stand. As the story goes, she then stepped on his head in front of a crowd of shocked onlookers.
One man unloaded his pistol into Mary, but the bullets couldn't penetrate her thick hide. The townspeople chanted, "Kill the elephant!" When officials at the circus' upcoming stops made it known that the animal was no longer welcome, Mary's owner relented: Murderous Mary, as she came to be known, had to die. But how? And where?
What happened next has haunted the neighboring town of Erwin for a century. That's because Erwin was home to an enormous rail yard and a 100-ton derrick car with a crane strong enough to hang an elephant.
a willing few wrapped a chain around Mary's neck. The crane slowly hoisted her a few feet off the ground. But as Mary began to kick, the chain broke, and she hit the ground hard. The elephant was stunned and sat motionless on her hind legs — as one eyewitness would remember — "like a rabbit."
The rail workers quickly got a new chain and hoisted her up once more — this time 10 or 15 feet off the ground. It's not clear how long it took Mary to die, but she dangled from the crane long enough for one onlooker to snap a photograph. A 1916 photo shows Mary hanging lifelessly from the crane. This macabre, visual evidence of the execution traveled far and wide, and it cemented Erwin's reputation — a town that few beyond East Tennessee had ever heard of — as the town that hanged an elephant.
"Oh! You're the town that hung the elephant!"
A crowd of thousands gathered in the Erwin rail yard to watch Mary's execution, many standing atop idle rail cars or nearby buildings, for fear the elephant would rampage. Though not everyone was happy about the spectacle. One rail worker refused to participate because, he told his friends, he worked the night shift and worried that killing the elephant would haunt him on his night rides.
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" PriceSGT Jim Arnold Maj Robert Thornton SPC Douglas Bolton Cynthia Croft SSgt Boyd Herrst TSgt Joe C. SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSG William Jones PO3 Craig Phillips
They developed at 11 minute podcast in an effort to change the narrative on Erwin, Tenn which was infamous for hanging elephant Mary in 1916 to be town that honored elephants and actually displayed 8 fiberglass elephants made by local artists which were placed throughout the town and auctioned off.
https://soundcloud.com/user-352618310/murderous-mary-the-rise-of
"Beginning in 2016, the 100th anniversary of Mary's hanging, Erwin began what it hoped would become an annual ritual: a weeklong series of events to celebrate elephants. That first year, the town paid nearly $9,000 for local artists to paint eight fiberglass elephants. They were displayed all over town and then auctioned off."
Image: In this 1916 photo, Mary the elephant hangs from the crane in Erwin, Tenn.
1. Recent interest:
"At the Unicoi County Chamber of Commerce, Cathy Huskins remembers one particularly angry tourist "came barreling through the door, and came up to the counter here and slung her hands down. ... And she says, 'I cannot believe that you killed an elephant!' "
Librarian Angie Georgeff is used to the strange phone calls and unannounced visits from world travelers:
"They just want to know, 'Is it true? Is it true? Did it really happen?' " Georgeff says. "Well, it did really happen. You know, there's agreement about that."
2. Background on the 1916 confrontation. When Mary the elephant took revenge and stomped on the head of her tormentor.
""Kill the elephant!"
In the fall of 1916, disaster struck when the circus came to East Tennessee.
A menagerie of animals from Sparks Circus paraded through the small town of Kingsport, Tenn., just a few miles from the Virginia border. The show's star attraction, a five-ton Asian elephant named Mary, suddenly stopped. She had noticed a pile of watermelon rinds and veered off course for a snack.
Riding on Mary's back was a new trainer, a man who had been a hotel bellhop just a few days before, and he struck Mary in the head with a large metal hook. In an instant, the elephant wrapped her trunk around the man and threw him into a drink stand. As the story goes, she then stepped on his head in front of a crowd of shocked onlookers.
One man unloaded his pistol into Mary, but the bullets couldn't penetrate her thick hide. The townspeople chanted, "Kill the elephant!" When officials at the circus' upcoming stops made it known that the animal was no longer welcome, Mary's owner relented: Murderous Mary, as she came to be known, had to die. But how? And where?
What happened next has haunted the neighboring town of Erwin for a century. That's because Erwin was home to an enormous rail yard and a 100-ton derrick car with a crane strong enough to hang an elephant.
a willing few wrapped a chain around Mary's neck. The crane slowly hoisted her a few feet off the ground. But as Mary began to kick, the chain broke, and she hit the ground hard. The elephant was stunned and sat motionless on her hind legs — as one eyewitness would remember — "like a rabbit."
The rail workers quickly got a new chain and hoisted her up once more — this time 10 or 15 feet off the ground. It's not clear how long it took Mary to die, but she dangled from the crane long enough for one onlooker to snap a photograph. A 1916 photo shows Mary hanging lifelessly from the crane. This macabre, visual evidence of the execution traveled far and wide, and it cemented Erwin's reputation — a town that few beyond East Tennessee had ever heard of — as the town that hanged an elephant.
"Oh! You're the town that hung the elephant!"
A crowd of thousands gathered in the Erwin rail yard to watch Mary's execution, many standing atop idle rail cars or nearby buildings, for fear the elephant would rampage. Though not everyone was happy about the spectacle. One rail worker refused to participate because, he told his friends, he worked the night shift and worried that killing the elephant would haunt him on his night rides.
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" PriceSGT Jim Arnold Maj Robert Thornton SPC Douglas Bolton Cynthia Croft SSgt Boyd Herrst TSgt Joe C. SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSG William Jones PO3 Craig Phillips
Murderous Mary & The RISE Of Erwin
Listen to Murderous Mary & The RISE Of Erwin by Mr. Wasem/Mr. Campbell #np on #SoundCloud
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I love Elephants: they are always smiling. ??!! ;-) I am so thrilled that this town is now saving Elephants! CW5 Jack Cardwell
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