Elk County Forum

•   Does anyone know anything about the Elk River Alligator he/she could share with us?

•   The only thing I am aware of is a six-foot alligator was captured from the Elk River maybe in the mid to late 1920s. The critter was stuffed and placed on display in Hottinger's drug store.

•   I can only remember back to the late forties and Hottinger's was closed by that time. I only recall a bunch of German World War I or II helmets and rifles on display in the closed store's window. I think it was on the northeast corner of Wabash and Randolph.

•   There is a mention of the alligator in the Elk County history book. There used to be a web site discussing the alligator put there by the family of a young girl who lived in Howard at the time. She has since passed away and the family has removed the web site. The web site mentioned Hot's drug store.

OK, I found it, but it doesn't tell us much more.  Does anyone else have any more on it?  I seem to remember my husband mentioning an alligator being found in Elk river but don't remember any more than the mention.

Well, the Kansas and Elk River alligator may be extinct but Colorado stilll has 450 of them.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/getAttraction.php3?tip_AttractionNo==3690

I'll try to find the newspaper clipping soon and get it posted on here.

The Citizen
June 6, 1925




Saturday, Decoration Day, a couple of oil workers going south from Howard, when crossing the Elk River at the bridge, south of town, noticed two alligators sporting in the river.  One of the men returned to town, and told of the fact, but it was a long time before he could find anyone to believe him.  Finally he went into Hottinger Drug Store and convinced Hottinger that he had not been imbibing corn liquor, and got him to go down and see for himself. The result was that Hottinger shot and killed the two animals, and they were brought to town.

The larger of the two reptiles measured 9 feet and 2 inches, and the smaller one 6 feet and 9 inches.  They were placed on the sidewalk in front of the drug store and thousands visited the free show Saturday.  That evening they were taken to the cooling room at the ice plant and Sunday, Mr. Hottinger and B. W. Hamar skinned the animals and mounted them.  Sunday larger crowds called to see the animals at the Hamar premises, many from neighboring towns.

Friday night a man driving through the country showed some alligators at Piedmont and the next morning he camped in the tourist park in the east part of town.  He left early Saturday morning, going south and it is the supposition that he threw the animals into the stream, as he crossed.  It is said that he had three of the animals when at Piedmont and parties claim to have seen another of the alligators down the river just above the city water works dam.

Why the showman should have disposed of his animals in this manner, is only speculation.

So that answers my alligator questions.

I remember seeing the stuffed aligators at The old Drug Store.

Waldo:  Read your alligator story in the Flinthill Express.  Good story.  Can you imagine the excitement the alligators must have created way back then?  There probably weren't many people around who had ever seen such a critter.

Yes, that was a good story.  I have enjoyed reading your stories in the Howard paper.

Thanks to both of you. This story would not have been complete without Lois Morgan finding the Howard Citizen story.

Besides the Elk River "alligator problem," the river also had an "elephant problem."

In 1899, Ringling Brothers circus visited Howard with twenty-five elephants, one-thousand human performers, five hundred horses, and one hundred cages of wild animals.

One elephant thought it was being over worked and ran away from circus workers where it hid in brush along the river until found. (Elk County History book,  p. 21)

I wonder where all those people and animals stayed?  Was it at the fairgrounds? 

Sometime prior to November 1945, when my dad was in the service my mom took me to a circus. All I can remember is a snapshot memory of looking at something strange called an elephant inside a tent with only a rope separating them and us. This was not during a performance but was in an elephant shelter tent and we were very close to those huge things watching them munch hay. I was petrified and can still remember staying close to my mom's leg. A few years ago, I asked her where the circus was and she said the fairgrounds.

I have difficulty envisioning how such a large circus as the one in 1899 could fit on the fairgrounds, although that area may have been larger at one time or had a lot of available adjacent open space. Besides the big top tent, there would have to be tent shelters for the 25 elephants, 500 horses, etc., a cook tent, service tents, room for 100 mobile cages, sideshow tents, etc.

Another oddity is the history book says the circus parade came into town at the Elk River ford south of Howard. The only ford I know of would have been at the location of the low water bridge south of the cemetery that was washed out in 1975. It does not seem logical that a circus parade would come down that huge hill from out of nowhere. However, if one is at the top of that hill, goes further south to the next section road, and turns east, there used to be a long railroad siding there. The freight portion of the circus must have parked on that siding, unloaded from flatbeds, and headed their animal wagon parade for the fairgrounds. There was no K-99 at the time and there were probably no bridges other than railroad over the Elk. It was at that ford pushing wagons across the Elk that the elephant became "overworked" and ran away.

I would have to think, though, that the passenger train housing the workers probably broke up and parked on the sidings west of Howard so they would be near their work area.

I bet many area people were happy with contracts to supply food, feed, and services to all those people and animals.