National Historic Landmark -Elephant Hotel

The Elephant Hotel, built and owned by Hachaliah Bailey, the first American to take exotic animals on tour for public entertainment, is associated with early American circus history.

Bailey began with an African elephant named Old Bet.

He subsequently added other wild animals to his collection and introduced the traveling -menagerie- as an attraction to the United States.

The Elephant Hotel became the meeting place and symbolic center of menagerie promoters and in 1835 the Zoological Institute, a monopoly of menagerie and circus owners, was incorporated at the hotel.

Courtesy National Park Service National Historical Landmarks