The Elephantine Colossus or Colossal Elephant Of Coney Island c.1890

For over 150 years Coney Island has attracted visitors to sample its beach, cuisine and amusement parks.

This magic lantern slide photograph shows an attraction that was more of a curiosity. Though It was only in existence for 11 years, hundreds of thousands of people came to see the Elephantine Colossus.

It was not a ride, but just a huge wooden structure covered with tin sheeting in the style of an elephant. It’s purpose simple; not an artistic endeavor or a monument to any person or event, but merely to extract a dime from the curious to visit the strange beast of a building.

It took two years to build and opened in 1885. The structure, also known as the Colossal Elephant, was built by architect J. Mason Kirby of Atlantic City, NJ and funded by promoter James V. Lafferty.

A Truly Colossal Structure

Originally the elephant was going to be built as a hotel, but that idea was abandoned. On the elephant’s back, shaped like a gigantic howdah (a howdah is used for riding a real elephant) was a viewing platform rising 88 feet off the ground, with the total height to the top of the flagpole 150 feet.

The total length of the elephant was 150 feet. The tusks were 36 feet long and five feet eight inches in diameter. The ears measured 34 feet long and 20 feet wide. The legs were 18 feet in diameter with the two rear legs containing circular staircases to enter and exit the elephant’s rooms. The Elephantine Colossus weighed over 100,000 tons.

The interior contained 34 separate rooms including an auditorium for concerts.The different rooms were named corresponding to their anatomical placement within the elephant. Hence there was the brain room, thigh room, hip room, stomach room, shoulder room, etc. Many of the rooms had windows which offered superlative views of the surrounding area.

As there were no amusement parks built in Coney Island before 1895, a visit to the area was not complete without paying the ten cents to go inside the Elephantine Colossus.

The Elephantine Colossus caught fire the evening of September 27, 1896.  Within 20 minutes the elephant was engulfed in flames and its legs collapsed bringing down the entire building in an all consuming inferno. The two families that lived inside the structure were both rescued. The cause of the fire was never discovered.

There’s no way to date our photo exactly. But the building in the foreground, Marion House containing a restaurant run by John C. Myers and his wife, was also destroyed by fire three years earlier on June 17, 1893.

Lafferty’s Elephants

Though the Elephantine Colossus is gone, one can still see another, even older, but smaller elephant standing in Margate, N.J.

This earlier elephant was built by the same promoter James V, Lafferty in 1881 to encourage sales of building lots in South Atlantic City, N.J..

The Cincinnati Enquirer profiled how the elephant came to be. Lafferty bought land along the beach and thought it would be easy to sell lots to buyers and make a tidy profit. Lafferty’s lots  did not sell and his friends told him he had an elephant on his hands. From that remark Lafferty conceived of the idea of building the elephant to attract visitors and potential land purchasers. The ploy worked. First named Elephant Bazaar, the town grew up around the elephant, which was later christened Lucy. South Atlantic City became Margate.

Lucy is 87 feet long, 29 feet wide and 65 feet high. This elephant was used as a restaurant and small hotel. Lucy was moved to its current location of Atlantic Avenue & Decatur Street in 1970.

Lafferty built a third elephant on the beach in Cape May soon after after the construction of the Coney Island Elephantine Colossus. After a particularly rough storm, the Cape May elephant collapsed in June 1900.

Lucy The Elephant, Margate, N.J. photo” Library of Congress