Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Makey. Some thought
Speaker 1: he was restless, others said he was lazy. Whatever the case,
Speaker 1: Lyman Balm saw life differently, and though he dreamed of
Speaker 1: becoming an author, he needed to earn a living. He
Speaker 1: and his wife moved from New York to the wild
Speaker 1: prairies in Dakota Territory to be closer to her family.
Speaker 1: He popped from one idea to another in an attempt
Speaker 1: to chase down his fortune. He bred chickens, tried acting,
Speaker 1: and eventually opened another business. He called it Bomb's Bizarre,
Speaker 1: selling novelties made by Native Americans and glassware imported from Japan.
Speaker 1: He trusted his customers, and his generous store credits soon
Speaker 1: banged corrupted him. He tried again, buying The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer.
Speaker 1: Unable to afford help, he acted as the editor and writer.
Speaker 1: He often wrote articles on why Native Americans should be exterminated.
Speaker 1: He took up photography and captured images of the stark
Speaker 1: and isolated landscape, though his favorite subjects were tornadoes and
Speaker 1: in his spare time, he finally took to writing a novel,
Speaker 1: setting it in Kansas. The twisters and bleak Dakota landscape
Speaker 1: featured prominently in his novel. First published in Dred, The
Speaker 1: Wonderful Wizard of Oz sold ten thousand copies. People loved
Speaker 1: Dorothy's story and her struggle to find a better place.
Speaker 1: Times were hard, and people related to her. In nine,
Speaker 1: Hollywood bought film rights and shortened the title to the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz. The movie went on to earn six
Speaker 1: Academy Award nominations. Bombsed piction of the tornado translated well
Speaker 1: into a motion picture. Viewers exclaimed aimed that they felt
Speaker 1: like they were on a roller coaster as the storm
Speaker 1: swept Dorothy, her dog Toto, and her house into the sky.
Speaker 1: Long before the days of computer graphics and special effects
Speaker 1: didn't come easy to depict the menacing cyclone moving towards
Speaker 1: the house, of filmmakers constructed a sort of large, flexible
Speaker 1: muslin windsock wrapped around chicken wire and attached it to
Speaker 1: a straddling gantry crane on a cart and track that
Speaker 1: could wind and waver around the sound stage. The prop
Speaker 1: cost twelve thousand dollars, a considerable amount of money in
Speaker 1: ninety eight, the effects paid off, viewers flocked to the theaters.
Speaker 1: Years later, brothers Harry Spencer and Grover Robbins sought to
Speaker 1: capitalize on the public's love of The Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 1: They operated Beach Mountain, a ski resort in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: In the off season of nineteen sixty five, the brothers
Speaker 1: set out to turn Beach Mountain into an amusement park.
Speaker 1: They hired designer Jack Pentis. Two years and forty four
Speaker 1: thousand yellow bricks later, the park was complete. It would
Speaker 1: take another three years before opening day, though unfortunately Grover
Speaker 1: passed away just months beforehand. Reporters and thousands of visitors
Speaker 1: were on hand when the park opened on June fifteenth
Speaker 1: of nine seventy. Actress Debbie Reynolds brought her daughter, Carrie Fisher.
Speaker 1: Reynolds had always been a big fan of the movie
Speaker 1: and owned a pair of the famous ruby slippers. She
Speaker 1: happily posed for the camera as she cut the ribbon.
Speaker 1: Visitors streamed into the park, eager to ride the hot
Speaker 1: air Balloon, which was a ski lift. Others flocked to
Speaker 1: the gift shops, the museum, or the Magic Moment Show.
Speaker 1: The brothers had paid attention to the details when designing
Speaker 1: the park, incorporating natural features in vistas with brightly painted mushrooms,
Speaker 1: a replica of Dorothy's house in Barn and Emerald City itself,
Speaker 1: a grand amphitheater with gift shops and a restaurant. Someone
Speaker 1: set a fire in the Amphitheater in ninety five as
Speaker 1: a distraction to rob the museum. The thieves took many props,
Speaker 1: including Judy Garland's dress from the fell, and though the
Speaker 1: park was rebuilt, vandalism men failing tourism forced it to
Speaker 1: shut its doors. In what's left of the park, it
Speaker 1: seems out of place among the mountains and forest. A
Speaker 1: yellow brick path appears from nowhere in the North Carolina woods.
Speaker 1: And though a few trees still hold eerie masks from
Speaker 1: the parks, heyday, and it's open a few days a
Speaker 1: year every fall, it's not America's strangest nor most enduring
Speaker 1: amusement park. For that, we must travel back nearly a
Speaker 1: hundred years to a place far stranger than Oz. I'm
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. It was an actual
Speaker 1: island once. It's beaches excellent for collecting clams and periwinkle snails.
Speaker 1: It's marsh is good for grazing. The Lenapee pe bulls
Speaker 1: who lived in the area left no written history, so
Speaker 1: what we know starts when the Dutch began colonizing what
Speaker 1: they called New Netherland. Land grants enticed more colonists, and
Speaker 1: not just the Dutch. This island, to the south and
Speaker 1: east of the capital, New Amsterdam, remained a quiet community
Speaker 1: of farms for the most part for two hundred years,
Speaker 1: until after the Civil War. New Amsterdam had become New
Speaker 1: York and this island had become Coney Island. By then,
Speaker 1: sea bathing had become all the rage, bringing wealthy families
Speaker 1: to its beaches. Hotels and restaurants followed, making the area
Speaker 1: popular with tourists. In eighteen sixty eight, seeing an opportunity
Speaker 1: to make a windfall, politician John McCaine sold the land
Speaker 1: to developers. The fact that he didn't own the land
Speaker 1: never dissuaded him, and he was never prosecuted. By eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, Coney Island attracted nearly thirty thousand visitors on
Speaker 1: the weekends. Developers added railroad lines and two piers to
Speaker 1: attract even more tourists, while the beach remained popular. The
Speaker 1: west end played host to a less family friendly group.
Speaker 1: Gamblers took to the racetrack and ringside bars cropped up
Speaker 1: and sex workers set up shop. The area became equally
Speaker 1: as popular, though due to the criminal activity and looser morals,
Speaker 1: no one in polite society seemed to mention it. Families
Speaker 1: focused on the roller coaster that opened in four along
Speaker 1: with other mechanical rides, sideshows, dime museums, and concerts. Coney
Speaker 1: Island offered dance halls, games of chance, marching bands, and circus.
Speaker 1: Patrons could even ride elephants and camels, or sit back
Speaker 1: and watch buffalo bills Wild West Show. There was a
Speaker 1: wide array of dining options. At night, the skies lit
Speaker 1: up with fireworks. There was something for everyone. At a
Speaker 1: time when society stressed boundaries between sexes and classes. Coney
Speaker 1: Island played host to the mall, and the park's atmosphere
Speaker 1: encouraged visitors to loosen their inhibition. Sans dancers performed the
Speaker 1: popular belly dance style shows is sometimes known as the
Speaker 1: Coochie Coochie and considered quite risque in the streets. And
Speaker 1: then there was the elephant hotel and a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty foot tall blue building in the shape of an elephant.
Speaker 1: The front of the structure had large glass eyes that
Speaker 1: appeared to scan the ocean. Spiral staircases leading to the
Speaker 1: hotel's thirty one rooms were constructed in the rear legs.
Speaker 1: The cigar shop occupied one front leg, and the other
Speaker 1: housed a diorama. The odd building had been the brainchild
Speaker 1: of John McCain, who had developed the eedier side of
Speaker 1: Coney Island that people called the Gut. Mostly the hotel
Speaker 1: served as a brothel. People winked at one another when
Speaker 1: they said they were going to see the elephant. When
Speaker 1: a fire burned the hotel to the ground in eighteen six,
Speaker 1: it did little to improve the area's reputation. Other attractions,
Speaker 1: like Sea Lion Park, built in eight became temporarily popular,
Speaker 1: though not very lucrative. Sitters enjoyed a water ride where
Speaker 1: they traveled down a short incline into a lake. Sea
Speaker 1: lions performed tricks, and bands played music throughout the day.
Speaker 1: The park fell from favor in nineteen o two and
Speaker 1: was sold to partners Frederick Thompson and Elmer Dundee. Between
Speaker 1: nineteen o three and nineteen forty four, the area became
Speaker 1: Luna Park and included a host of new attractions and
Speaker 1: rides like Tripped to the Moon and exhibits in the
Speaker 1: form of small villages designed to resemble other countries and
Speaker 1: to compete with Luna Park, a rifle developer, William Reynolds
Speaker 1: had to come up with more attractions and rides. He
Speaker 1: created a village of People with Dwarfism, where tourists interacted
Speaker 1: with the residents like a human zoo. The park even
Speaker 1: had a show with a one armed line tamer. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest attractions was a water ride called The
Speaker 1: Gates of Hell. Riders boats were swept through a whirlpool
Speaker 1: as though they had been taken below the lake and
Speaker 1: into the depths of Hell. An explosion at the end
Speaker 1: gave patrons the sense of being catapulted back to their fists.
Speaker 1: Parents who visited Coney Island thought nothing of letting their
Speaker 1: children explore much of the park alone, and one of
Speaker 1: those children would go on to change Coney Island forever.
Speaker 1: George Tillie was a Coney Island native. His parents ran
Speaker 1: The Surf House, a family friendly restaurant on the water
Speaker 1: throughout his youth, George watched the town change. The chick
Speaker 1: Seaside Haven had become a raunchy playground for all social classes.
Speaker 1: He observed the tourists parted ways with their cash for
Speaker 1: just about anything with a price tag. While any other
Speaker 1: kid might have had a lemonade stand, George sold bottles
Speaker 1: of sea water and sand tourists. He paid attention to
Speaker 1: what people wanted and saw another opportunity transportation to and
Speaker 1: front the parks. He earned enough to buy a horse
Speaker 1: and made a ramshackle coach from Driftwood. When tourists arrived
Speaker 1: at nor His Point on the west End, George greeted
Speaker 1: them and happily took them wherever they wanted. Of course,
Speaker 1: every trip happened to pass by the family restaurant. Before long,
Speaker 1: George had earned enough to buy six horses and two
Speaker 1: stage coaches. For a young entrepreneur, life was good. At seventeen,
Speaker 1: he saw another opportunity and put his energy into real estate.
Speaker 1: Corruption was plentiful on Coney Island, and real estate was
Speaker 1: no exception. A government officials leased land for forty one
Speaker 1: dollars a year and subleased it for a thousand. The
Speaker 1: person who subleased up charged the next renter down the line.
Speaker 1: Using this tactic, George made serious money. But for all
Speaker 1: his success, he grew bored, so with his father's help,
Speaker 1: he built till he Use Surf Theater. Still unsatisfied, he
Speaker 1: returned to real estate. But George had a problem. John
Speaker 1: McCain presided over a group of thugs who stole from
Speaker 1: locals and tourists alike. He had plenty of government influence,
Speaker 1: so every one kept quiet when the New York State
Speaker 1: Assembly launched an investigation, except for the Tilayu family. Their
Speaker 1: cooperation with prosecutors cost them everything. McCain's gang forced George
Speaker 1: to shut down his real estate business, and m Kingpin
Speaker 1: managed to use political allies to steal the family's restaurant
Speaker 1: out from under them. The harassment stopped only after McCain
Speaker 1: went to sing sing In four for voter fraud and
Speaker 1: fixing elections. Afterward, George married his sweetheart Nery O'Donnell. The
Speaker 1: couples spent their honeymoon in Chicago, host to the world's
Speaker 1: Columbian Exposition. The newlyweds enjoyed time at the Midway among
Speaker 1: the rides, snacks, and entertainment. The most impressive ride was
Speaker 1: the Ferris wheel. George offered to buy it, but St.
Speaker 1: Louis had already purchased the ride for the next World's Fair. Undaunted,
Speaker 1: George set to work on building his own park. When
Speaker 1: he returned to Coney Island. The Steeplechase ride was his first,
Speaker 1: a tourists rode mechanical horses that moved along a track.
Speaker 1: He second purchase was a smaller wheel similar to Ferris's
Speaker 1: design in Chicago. His sister, dressed in an evening gown
Speaker 1: and sporting a diamond necklace, stood at the entrance to
Speaker 1: attract customers. George finally opened steeple Chase Park. The park
Speaker 1: remained successful for over a decade. Estimates put over nine
Speaker 1: thousand visitors through steeple Chase Parks gates where other amusement
Speaker 1: parks had failed. George had figured out a trick to
Speaker 1: keep guests at the park longer, and the longer they stayed,
Speaker 1: the more they spent. George came up with the idea
Speaker 1: of a combination ticket. Visitors paid twenty five cents, allowing
Speaker 1: them to ride any of his parks twenty five rides.
Speaker 1: Other parks charged ten cents per ride. In addition, George
Speaker 1: had a particular kind of customer in mind, but he
Speaker 1: prohibited alcohol in the park and hired a security team
Speaker 1: to remove troublemakers. While it might appear he wanted a good,
Speaker 1: wholesome family park, George also understood one more thing, sex sells.
Speaker 1: He worked on a balance between respectable and risque. In
Speaker 1: Victorian times, it was considered inappropriate for on web couples
Speaker 1: to be alone together or without a chaperone. The simple
Speaker 1: touch of a hand on an arm might be misunderstood
Speaker 1: and was certainly frowned upon. George called his park the
Speaker 1: Funny Place. He designed some rides that allowed polite society
Speaker 1: to get a little taste of the taboo. A sign
Speaker 1: with a grinning jester's face greeted park visitors, and that
Speaker 1: face alluded to the provocative entertainment they could expect inside.
Speaker 1: Upon entry, people climbed into the Barrel of fun revolving
Speaker 1: cylinder ride below the jester's face. The ride tossed people around,
Speaker 1: frequently on top of one another, and riders often grabbed
Speaker 1: the person next to them to keep their footing. The
Speaker 1: human roulette, a whirlpool, and human pool table were all
Speaker 1: designed to allow visitors to interact in these taboo ways,
Speaker 1: the which Way ride spun in random directions. Women riders
Speaker 1: might be thrown from their seats and into men's laps,
Speaker 1: but the biggest ride remained the steeple chase. Attendants dressed
Speaker 1: as jockeys helped guests onto their mechanical horses, and the
Speaker 1: trumpeters stood at the starting line. The horses undulated and
Speaker 1: bobbed around the track before crossing the finish line. Once
Speaker 1: the riders dismounted, they had to travel through a dimly
Speaker 1: lit maze that exited onto a brightly lit stage. The
Speaker 1: blasts of air blue women's dresses upward, and people with
Speaker 1: dwarfism bearing cattle prods randomly selected men to shock, often
Speaker 1: just below the belt. Crowds in the stands laughed and
Speaker 1: cheered as the gas ran through a gauntlet of clowns
Speaker 1: wielding slapsticks, more blasts of air, and other devices that
Speaker 1: left them with little dignity. Then these newcomer as took
Speaker 1: their place in the crowd to watch the next batch
Speaker 1: of guests. The park rented out clown suits, allowing patrons
Speaker 1: to interact with other guests and employees in ways they
Speaker 1: might not otherwise. Even the park employees got in on act,
Speaker 1: dressing in animal costumes. With their identities hidden behind masks
Speaker 1: and costumes, people were free to participate in more risk
Speaker 1: gay manners in lavish gardens. Uniformed waiters tended to the guests.
Speaker 1: As patrons dined, Small hidden jets of air might expose
Speaker 1: a petticoat or a part of a woman's ankles. For diners,
Speaker 1: the experience walked the line between chaste and kinky. Over
Speaker 1: the years, the park grew more successful and popular. George
Speaker 1: Tillieu had perfected the park with even more rides and
Speaker 1: tweaks for the summer season. In nine seven, Coney Island
Speaker 1: was packed, and that's when it all came crashing down.
Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of Sunday, July, someone discarded
Speaker 1: a lit cigarette near the cave of the Winds Attraction.
Speaker 1: Watchman summoned help, and though the engine company one four arrived,
Speaker 1: moments later, the fire had spread, and George had been
Speaker 1: working in his office and raced outside to help douse
Speaker 1: the flames. The fire ran along fifteen miles of ground
Speaker 1: through the bowery and the concert hall. Hotels and other
Speaker 1: businesses were destroyed Before firefighters had the blaze under control.
Speaker 1: Though the park had been closed when the fire broke out,
Speaker 1: and there were injuries throughout it all, George remained calm.
Speaker 1: He fought the blaze and helped with the injured until
Speaker 1: seven that morning. Then, with the fire out, he went home,
Speaker 1: changed clothes, and took his family to church. Over thirty
Speaker 1: five acres had been burned. George later estimated that the
Speaker 1: park cost two hundred thousand dollars to rebuild, an astounding
Speaker 1: amount for the time. He started by charging admission to
Speaker 1: the ruins for ten cents. The next day, when he
Speaker 1: rebuilt Steeple Chase Park, he added a five acre glass
Speaker 1: building he called the Pavilion of fun Funny Face. The
Speaker 1: deviantly smiling jester stood amid the stained glass designs, and
Speaker 1: long after George died in nineteen fourteen, Funny Face remained.
Speaker 1: Had not only been the park's mascot, but had become
Speaker 1: symbol of Coney Island, welcoming visitors for years to come.
Speaker 1: Robert Moses did not care for Funny Face, not at all.
Speaker 1: He didn't like what the grinning jester represented a Coney
Speaker 1: Island and amusement parks. In his opinion, anyone who visited
Speaker 1: them was low brow and low class. In the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: Robert set out to rid Coney Island of the parks.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen forties, he managed to take over Dreamland
Speaker 1: and relocated the New York Aquarium in its place to
Speaker 1: prevent other amusement parks from take over, and soon he
Speaker 1: built low income high rise apartments nearby, which made him
Speaker 1: a tidy profit. The downturn came during the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Coney Island's crime rate sword and new theme parks like
Speaker 1: Disney opened elsewhere, loring vacationers away to safer environments. Consumers
Speaker 1: began to share Robert's opinion that Coney Island had become
Speaker 1: dated and trashy. Over the years, George's children had done
Speaker 1: everything possible to keep Steeple Chase Park going, but now
Speaker 1: they had grown older and the time had come to
Speaker 1: sell it. Astra Land, a neighboring park, offered to buy,
Speaker 1: but Mary till You turned them down and began looking
Speaker 1: for a higher bidder. Without consulting her siblings, she sold
Speaker 1: the park to a New York businessman and real estate
Speaker 1: developer by the name of Frederick in July of nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Fred was more than happy to shell out two point
Speaker 1: five million dollars for it. He had big plans for
Speaker 1: the area, and none of them had to do with
Speaker 1: amusement parks. In the nineteen fifties, he had owned both
Speaker 1: Luna Park and another park nearby, but lost them in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five after the federal government blacklisted him during
Speaker 1: a profiteering investigation. Finally, it seemed that Fred's plans for
Speaker 1: more low income housing on Coney Island were about to
Speaker 1: come to fruition. The land wasn't zoned for residential construction,
Speaker 1: but that hadn't stopped Fred from purchasing it or from
Speaker 1: moving forward with the project. Other parks had since been
Speaker 1: demolished and rebuilt into housing districts, and with his political connections,
Speaker 1: he felt confident that rezoning would not be a problem.
Speaker 1: His close friend A Beam was almost certainly going to
Speaker 1: be elected mayor in the upcoming election. The surrounding beaches
Speaker 1: had become public domain, and Fred worried that Steeplechase Park
Speaker 1: might become a designated landmark, so he planned a farewell
Speaker 1: party for September twenty one of nineteen sixty six, in
Speaker 1: which he would destroy everything historical about the park. He
Speaker 1: posed with bikini cloud models wearing hard hats and sporting sledgehammers.
Speaker 1: He handed guests bricks and instructed them to smash the
Speaker 1: stained glass, especially the iconic funny face. After the guests left,
Speaker 1: an earth mover destroyed everything else except for the pier
Speaker 1: and the parachute jump. The election rolled around and John
Speaker 1: Lindsay was elected mayor. In a surprise upset, he agreed
Speaker 1: with the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce to keep the
Speaker 1: area's zoning laws intact and to turn Steeple Chase into
Speaker 1: a public park. Without the new mayor's political support, Fred
Speaker 1: sold the property to the city. While it would never
Speaker 1: earn him the profits a housing project would have. Fred
Speaker 1: c Trump walked away with a one point two million
Speaker 1: dollar profit. There's more to this story. Stick around after
Speaker 1: this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. She
Speaker 1: was born sometime around eighteen seventy five in Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: where she enjoyed a care free life with her loving family.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy seven, that life ended when she was
Speaker 1: taken from her family and put on a boat to
Speaker 1: New York. There, circus owner Adam Forepaw named the baby
Speaker 1: elephant Topsy, and promptly put her on display. Fearing backlash,
Speaker 1: potential criticism, or to be one up on competitor P. T. Barnum.
Speaker 1: He claimed that she had been born in captivity. Although
Speaker 1: she wasn't his first elephant, Topsy became his only elephant,
Speaker 1: and without a herd. She did her best to please
Speaker 1: her human handlers, but in that time and place, it
Speaker 1: was believed that the only way to maintain control of
Speaker 1: an animal was to use pain and fear. At first,
Speaker 1: handlers and trainers thought Top's compliance meant she had accepted
Speaker 1: their power over her, but the opposite came true. The
Speaker 1: continued abuse made her more difficult to deal with, and
Speaker 1: her handlers began jabbing her with pitchforks or burning her
Speaker 1: with a lit cigar for her disobedience. On two circus
Speaker 1: attendee j Fielding Blout wandered her tent. As the story goes,
Speaker 1: he had been drinking heavily. Blount lit a cigarette and
Speaker 1: tried to force feed it to Topsy. It was one
Speaker 1: torment too many. Topsy grabbed Blount and threw him to
Speaker 1: the ground, killing him. Her handlers and the papers labeled
Speaker 1: her a bad elephant. Never once considering her treatment. Instead,
Speaker 1: reporters wrote stories about her man killing past, though there
Speaker 1: were no records, reports, or truth to the tales. For
Speaker 1: Pa didn't mind the sensationalist headlines, though atopsy, the man
Speaker 1: killing elephant drew large crowds. Meanwhile, Topsy's abuse continued, and
Speaker 1: in June of nineteen o two, the abuse became too
Speaker 1: much once more. While loading her onto a train car
Speaker 1: in Kingston, New York, a man jabbed her behind the
Speaker 1: ear with a stick. She turned and grabbed him, tossing
Speaker 1: him to the ground. He survived, but for Paul quickly
Speaker 1: sold Topsy to Luna Park on Coney Island. Her new
Speaker 1: trainer jabbed her so many times in the face with
Speaker 1: a pitchfork that he drew blood. Though terrified, Topsy never attacked.
Speaker 1: The assault on Topsy finally drew the attention of authorities,
Speaker 1: who arrested her handler for extreme cruelty. Then they arrested
Speaker 1: him a second time for the same charge, and a
Speaker 1: third time. Even though her trainer had been charged with
Speaker 1: cruelty and abuse, the newspapers still blamed Topsy. Luna Park's
Speaker 1: owners decided the best course of action was to hang
Speaker 1: Topsy upon hearing the news, the Society for the Prevention
Speaker 1: of Cruelty to Animals Today the a s p c
Speaker 1: A stepped in, forcing the park owners to abandon their plan.
Speaker 1: The hanging Topsy was necessarily cruel, the society said. After
Speaker 1: a visit to Thomas Edison's labs, they devised a new plan.
Speaker 1: Edison and the SPCA had worked together back in the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties. The SPCA wanted to find a humane way
Speaker 1: to euthanize animals, and Edison, a proponent of d C current,
Speaker 1: wanted to prove that his rival, Tesla's A C current
Speaker 1: was deadly inspired. Luna Park decided on electrocution for Topsy's fate,
Speaker 1: but electrocuting something as large as an elephant posed a problem.
Speaker 1: They decided to execute Topsy with a combination of electrocution, poisoning,
Speaker 1: and strangulation, and while Edison probably wasn't involved, it wasn't
Speaker 1: there the day of the execution. His company did provide
Speaker 1: the six thousand, six hundred volts from a nearby A
Speaker 1: C generator station. The overcast and gloomy sky marked Topsy's
Speaker 1: last day January four, of nineteen o three. Hendler's led
Speaker 1: her from her stall. A final time. She stopped at
Speaker 1: the bridge leading to her execution site, and, even with prodding,
Speaker 1: would move no further. Officials had to bring the equipment
Speaker 1: to her. Other than refusing to cross the bridge, Topsy
Speaker 1: did everything the handlers asked. She gently raised each leg,
Speaker 1: allowing copper plates to be secured to her feet. Everyone
Speaker 1: grew quiet except for one reporter. Not so vicious, he said.
Speaker 1: She gently took the poisoned carrots from her handlers and
Speaker 1: stood quietly as they slipped a noose over her neck.
Speaker 1: Then one of the men flipped the switch. Topsy shook
Speaker 1: violently for ten seconds, then collapsed to the ground. The
Speaker 1: men tightened the noose for another ten minutes to ensure
Speaker 1: she was dead. Newspapers like The New York Times reported
Speaker 1: on it that week, and the film crew documented the execution.
Speaker 1: Though handling practices did change over the years, elephants remained
Speaker 1: in large circuses like the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and
Speaker 1: bay LEAs until when public outcry over living conditions and
Speaker 1: the use of bullhooks and other devices to chorus the
Speaker 1: animals to perform forced the company to stop using elephants
Speaker 1: in their acts. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed,
Speaker 1: and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn
Speaker 1: more about the show, visit grim and mild dot com.
Speaker 1: From more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.