When people talk about St. Thomas inevitably the conversation turns to the story of Jumbo the Elephant's tragic tale.

Read on to find out the facts of the story and a few points even our locals probably don't realize.

was the world's first true celebrity elephant.

His owner, P.T. Barnum, promoted Jumbo as the largest elephant on earth, and circus-goers from every civilized nation came to pay him homage.

Tragically, at the peak of his popularity, Jumbo was killed trying to protect a small elephant named Tom Thumb that had wandered onto the train tracks.  Jumbo rammed the train hoping to save the little elephant and consequently drove one of his tusks into his brain. A lesser elephant would have been bulldozed into a pit and forgotten... But Not Jumbo. His 1,500+ pound hide was scraped clean, stuffed, and put on display at Tufts University. After generations of students embraced him as their own, he became the school's official mascot, however both the school and hide were destroyed in a fire.

To commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of this fateful event, the St. Thomas Jumbo Foundation unveiled a monument on June 29, 1985.
The statue was designed and constructed by Winston Bronnum in Sussex, New Brunswick. It is made of concrete with steel reinforcing rods throughout. The body is hollow and the walls are about seven inches thick. The legs are solid concrete and steel. The skin texture was achieved by trowelling on three quarters of an inch of coloured cement and sand plaster. The statue with its six inch base weighs thirty-eight tons. The base pedestal was constructed on the site and weighs over one hundred tons.
The project was funded totally with contributions from citizens, corporations and organizations of St. Thomas and Elgin County with the St. Thomas Kiwanis Club raising over $50,000.00 towards the project. The City of St. Thomas provided the site where Jumbo stands on top of the hill on the way into town from London.