The Summit Place Elephant
They have finally set a date in April to demolish the Summit Place Mall in Waterford, but before it goes we wanted to take a look back at one of the oddest things found on the grounds of the Mall…
four decades ago, a 4-ton circus elephant named Little Jennie dropped dead at what is now the sight of Summit Place Mall.
The elephant was an aging Hollywood star living out life in the traveling circus. The circumstances of her death required an impromptu burial on mall grounds.
The grave was never marked, and no one can recall where exactly the elephant has been resting since 1972.
The elephants burial was witnessed by two reporters for the Oakland Press, who were in the newsroom when calls came in about a dead elephant at the mall.
image Cutline (Photo: image Credit)
This front-page photo ran in the July 22, 1972, edition of the Oakland Press. It shows one elephant, Babe, pushing the lifeless body of another elephant named Little Jennie into a freshly dug pit outside what is now Summit Place Mall. (Photo: Kingsley Cotton)
