On November 11, 1942, an escaped elephant stole headlines, including a story
with an oversized photo in the Union City Times-Gazette.
The Great American Circus with three starring elephants came to Wabash to put
on a show as a fundraiser at the local high school gymnasium.
Unfortunately, a pack of dogs belonging to negligent homeowners charged the
elephants after handlers tethered them.
All three elephants broke their moorings.
Empress and Judy ran for a few blocks and halted. Handlers captured them
without resistance or much damage.
The third elephant, named Little Modoc after the legendary Ringling Bros’
elephant “Mighty Mo,” had no wish to be lassoed.
Little Modoc had been captured at age four in Burma and was trained by circus
performer Eddie Allen in 1937.
Yes, Modoc was well-trained but still wild at heart.
Modoc charged through the door of a resident’s Stitt Street home at basement
level. The homewrecker knocked out furnace and water pipes before leaving.
She headed for the Wabash business district. Astonished shoppers darted for
safety. The elephant trumpeted its defiance and rumbled through the streets.
The panicky pachyderm fixed eyes on Mrs. Chauncey Kessler and charged.
Kessler fled screaming and ran into the Bradley Brothers drug store.
Undaunted, Modoc lumbered through a store doorway just 42-inches wide and
came after her.
Modoc knocked a marble soda fountain right off its base, and then slammed into
a case of nuts to spill them.The elephant turned again to Kessler. She had to acknowledge the elephant in
the room.
Modoc delivered a glancing blow with her trunk that rolled the victim across the
floor.
Mrs. Kessler took refuge behind a showcase. Two clerks and the store owner
cowered with her. She was shaken but unhurt.
Modoc indulged in a snack of peanuts, wrecked another showcase, and then
continued her rampage outside.
By this time, circus workers caught up to her, but she made a beeline for the
Salamonie River and waded across.
Before she could be apprehended, five days would pass.
Modoc made her way to sparsely populated Mount Etna in Huntington County,
alternately hiding in deep woods and roaming cleared crop fields. After she charged
a local man named Kenneth Kindley, 35, she tripped and landed on him, fracturing a
vertebra at the base of his neck.
(Kindley left an Indianapolis hospital and wore a brace for two months.
Fortunately, he recovered by April 1943).
Now authorities ran out of patience. State police debated euthanizing the
valuable Modoc before a citizen ended up dead. Railroad personnel worried she might
collide with a train and cause a disaster.
Crowds of people drove to Huntington County from all over the state to catch
sight of the truant. Then-Governor Henry F. Schrickner showed up for a couple hours to
gawk.
Some onlookers formed a posse to chase Modoc, making a bad situation worse
as they cornered her.
Circus employees came up with a last-ditch scheme. They brought dozens of
day-old bread loaves as an appeasement.
The bread lulled her. So did a gallon-and-a-half of sleepy-time whiskey.
A trainer at last captured and subdued Modoc with an elephant hook to the ear
as she ate a loaf from his hand.The circus crew trucked Modoc to the Peru off-season quarters to recover. She
rejoined her two fellow performers. She had lost 800 pounds and caught a cold, but she
too recovered.
Modoc was sold in the mid-1940s to Stevens Bros. Circus.
Trainer Dolly Jacobs, the divorced spouse of lion trainer Terrell Jacobs, thrilled
audiences by showing off the elephant’s repertoire of tricks. (Jacobs was not the notable
circus aerialist with the same name).
In the mid-1950s, Dolly Jacobs and the now-enormous Modoc joined the Shrine
Circus. Modoc used her trunk to ensnare Jacobs and deposit the trainer on her broad
elephant’s back.
Hmm, I wonder if Little Modoc in her old age recalled her Great Escape and gave
a broad gleeful pachyderm smile?
Sure, she did, right? An elephant never forgets.
Going on a wild elephant chase By Hank Nuwer
