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This article is about the historic elephant named Jumbo. For other uses, see Jumbo (disambiguation)
Jumbo (1861 - September 15, 1885) was an African elephant, born in 1861 in the French Sudan from where he was imported to France and kept in the old Zoo Jardin des Plantes close to the railway station Gare d'Austerlitz in Paris. In 1865 he was transferred to the London Zoo, where he became famous for giving rides to visitors. The London zoo-keepers gave Jumbo his name; it is likely an afflicted version of one of two Swahili words: jambo, which means "hello," or jumbe, which means "chief."
Jumbo was sold in 1882 to P. T. Barnum, owner of "The Greatest Show on Earth", the Barnum & Bailey Circus for $10,000 US. Estimated to be 3.25 metres high in the London Zoo, it was claimed that Jumbo was approximately 4 metres tall by the time of his death. Jumbo died at a train station in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, where he was crushed by a locomotive. Many believe that he was killed trying to save a young elephant known as Tom Thumb, but this is likely a myth. A life-size statue of the elephant in St. Thomas commemorates the tragedy. Many metallic objects were found in the elephant's stomach, including pennies, keys, and rivets.
Mural featuring Jumbo,
St. Thomas, Ontario
Jumbo's skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The elephant's heart was sold to Cornell University. Jumbo's hide was stuffed and traveled with Barnum's circus for a number of years. In 1889, Barnum donated the stuffed Jumbo to Tufts University, where it was displayed until destroyed by a fire in 1975. Jumbo's tail, which survived the fire, is kept in the University archives. The great elephant's ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director. A statue of "Jumbo" was purchased from an amusement park and placed on the Tufts campus after the fire, however this statue erroneously depicts an Asian elephant, not an African elephant. In honor of Barnum's donation of the elephant's hide and more than $50,000, Jumbo became the university's mascot, and remains such to this day.
Jumbo statue in St. Thomas, Ontario
As a result of Barnum's publicity the word "jumbo" is now synonymous with "large" or "huge": a large hot dog sausage may be called a "jumbo hot dog"; the Boeing 747 is known as the "Jumbo Jet".
[edit] See also
- History of elephants in Europe
- List of historical elephants
- The Greatest Show on Earth: A movie based on the story of the Barnum and Bailey Circus.
[edit] External links
