Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2018 - 52

WORTH
A CLICK

Go to BlueRidgeCountry.
com/Elephant to read Joan
Vannorsdall's original story on
Mary the Elephant, from the
May/June 1997 issue.

RIGHT: Main Street
Erwin comes alive for the
Great Outdoors Festival,
even in the rain.
BELOW: This trainyard
is the site of the 1916
hanging of Mary the
Elephant.
FACING PAGE: These
colorful elephants are
part of the Elephant
Revival Herd, debuted
at the Great Outdoors
Festival on May 5.

52

BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

T

oday, Erwin has a new elephant
story to tell, rich with redemption, creativity, and momentum.
Twenty-odd years ago, I went
to eastern Tennessee to puzzle
through the story of Murderous
Mary, the five-ton Sparks circus
elephant who killed her novice trainer in
Kingsport one day and died by hanging in
Erwin's railyard the next. I spent time in
the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University reading oral histories
from those who witnessed the hanging or
heard the stories told in the aftermath.
I walked the quiet streets of Erwin
and the tracks in the Clinchfield (CSX)

Railroad yard. I browsed the aisles of the
Hanging Elephant Antique Mall and was
horrified by the large outdoor mural showing Mary swinging by the neck. (Later the
mural was replaced by one of a young girl
swinging, suspended from what appears to
be the Hand of God, sheltering several animals in its palm-what one visitor called
"a strange inversion" of the original.)
In the story I wrote for Blue Ridge Country, I shared the convictions of Ruth Piper,
who believed then that her town had suffered long enough. Back then, she was a
lone voice in Erwin: "Kingsport, the railroad, and Mr. Sparks are to blame for what
happened to Mary-not Erwin. People feel
so guilty about it-we've got to release it.
It is a sad, sad thing that happened, but we
have to let it go."
It took a while, but today, Ruth Piper's
words are echoed by many. Erwin, Tennessee is tired of being known as the town
that hung an elephant.
What I found when I returned to Erwin
was a town determined to make amends
for its elephant crime, and in the process,
reinvent itself socially and economically.
First things first. Here's what happened
in mid-September, 1916.
The Sparks World Famous Shows was
traveling the rails through eastern Tennessee when they picked up a new elephant
handler. Walter "Red" Eldridge was a drifter, a dreamer, and a daredevil-the day
after he was hired, he rode massive Mary
("The Largest Living Animal On Earth")
through the streets of Kingsport.
When Mary stopped to enjoy some
discarded watermelon rinds, Red hit the
side of her head with his elephant stick.
You can guess the rest: Mary lifted him
in her trunk and tossed Red onto the
street, then put her foot on his head
and "squashed it like a ripe melon," as
Charles Price put it in his 1992 book,
"The Day They Hung the Elephant."
(Speculation later was that Eldridge
had hit an infected tooth, causing Mary's
violent response. But since that report
came from an alleged autopsy conducted
by a veterinarian deep in Mary's grave
several days after her hanging, one can
only wonder.)
Circus owner Charlie Sparks didn't
want to kill Mary...she was valued at
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Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2018

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