The Immolation Of Jumbo

Those who followed the sad story of P. T. Barnum’s mighty Jumbo in our August, 1973, issue will be grieved to hear that the elephant’s remains were destroyed last April in a fire that swept through the P. T. Barnum Hall at Tufts University’s Medford campus. But all is not lost. Canny showman that he was, Barnum had Jumbo’s bones and skin mounted separately after the elephant was knocked into eternity by a Grand Trunk freight locomotive. Barnum donated the hide to Tufts and the skeleton to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where it remains, stark and sound.