Waterford Factoids – CSX City of the Week
Congratulations to Waterford,
You’re the WCSX City of the Week
Waterford factoids:
- In the 1600’s, Waterford Township was a hunting and fishing ground for American Indians, primarily the Potawatomi and the Ottawa. Waterford had many swamps and Indians did not live near swamps because of mosquitoes.
- The Waterford hotel was built in 1841 by Stephen Besley. It was also known as the Bradt’s Exchange and The Waterford Exchange. It served as a stagecoach stop for over 60 years. The Waterford Hotel was finally torn down in 1970.
- Waterford’s defunct Summit Place Mall has an elephant buried in its parking lot. Little Jennie, a star of the movies and circus died of old age (age 60) in 1972 while traveling with the circus. Little Jennie had lived most her life traveling with her elephant partner, Babe. The circus folk wanted to take her but they had no way to move her, so a hole was dug right where she died using a backhoe. When the backhoe started to nudge Little Jennie in to the hole, a cry went up from the circus hands. The backhoe was stopped, the elephant handlers brought over Babe. “Push, Babe, push.” “And the huge elephant toppled her in to her grave,” according to the local newspaper at the time. Part of the Summit Mall is being demolished to make room for the new Oakland County Business Center. Since Little Jennie never had a burial marker, no one knows exactly where she’s buried.
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