A history from various newspaper clippings and writings on Bolivar, the Biggest Elephant in America in his time from the 1880s onward, starting in the old grand Forepaugh Circus, dominant chief rival in national fame to P. T. Barnum's upstart bid into circus following the burn out of his museums in Manhattan. A public war of words and advertising built around two elephants, Forepaugh (pronounced 4-Paw)'s heavier Asian Elephant Bolivar and Barnum's taller African elephant Jumbo. All in the size of ears so to speak. This until the untimely death of Jumbo being hit and killed by a locomotive as he was being loaded into a circus car in a train yard in Ontario in 1885. Also tales of the Circus and the care and training of circus animals from an old trainer from public domain sources. And the unfortunate retirement life of Bolivar with Forepaugh's withdraw from the circus business and for poor Bolivar into the ill designed, in architecture and Victorian attitude for animals, local ZOO from 1888 to 1908.
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