{"id":20950,"date":"2024-06-12T00:33:47","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T06:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=20950"},"modified":"2024-06-10T16:57:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T22:57:29","slug":"samsons-romp-around-hailey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/12\/samsons-romp-around-hailey\/","title":{"rendered":"Samson\u2019s Romp Around Hailey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrating the Fourth of July, circus-style<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By MIKE MCKENNA<\/em><\/p>\n

There once was a time before cellphones, zoos and Top Golf when entertainment wasn\u2019t so easy to come by. The circus coming to town\u2014especially a small town in the middle-of-nowhere Idaho\u2014was a really big deal.
\nJust a few years after Hailey became an official town, W.W. Cole\u2019s Colossal Circus made a stop in the Wood River Valley.
\nIt was 1884 and folks of all ages came from miles around to see the circus. It\u2019s estimated that 6,000 people traveled to Hailey, roughly doubling the town\u2019s population. The Daily Wood River Times still complained, however, saying that the numbers would have been higher with better advertising.
\nThe influx of visitors certainly must have been good news for Hailey\u2019s 18 saloons and 12 gambling halls!
\nThe large crowd lined Main Street as the circus made its \u201cGrand Street Parade\u201d from the train depot to the circus grounds. Covering nearly a mile, the parade included five elephants, a caravan of camels, several black stallions, a hippopotamus, a rhino, lions, tigers and snakes\u2014and undoubtedly some snake oil salesmen, as well. It took over 300 men to manage the circus and its moving menagerie.
\nThe circus included the largest Indian elephant ever in captivity at the time.
\n\u201cSamson\u201d weighed in at five tons and stood over 12 feet tall. Much like his namesake, Samson was also known for causing great damage when he was angry.
\nGeorge Conklin was the head trainer for the Cole Circus. Conklin stated that about once a year, Samson would lose his cool and run amok. He\u2019d then go back to being the fairly passive \u201cmastodon,\u201d as they marketed him, that people loved.
\nBefore the parade had even started, Samson had an incident with an empty train car, tossing it 20 feet with his trunk. Conklin hobbled Samson with leg chains as a punishment.
\nShortly after the parade ended and Samson had dropped off a bunch of kids who rode on him during it, a Delilah-type situation got him fired up. Conklin believed it was because a younger male elephant was making the moves on one of Samson\u2019s females.
\nWhatever the reason, the largest land animal on earth decided it was done being nice. Samson began by mauling a couple of mastiffs and then attacked the lion cage. Samson destroyed a few more wagons before rampaging through town.
\nNumerous attempts to shoot Samson had little impact until he got himself caught amongst some of the carnage the he\u2019d created back at the train depot. The handlers roped Samson up and walked him peacefully back to camp. Samson was soon welcoming curious onlookers again and, as the Times stated, \u201cseemed to enjoy the fun\u201d of his rampage.
\nSamson died in a fire many years later and his bones were collected and put on display in the Museum of Natural History in New York.
\nThis year, Hailey\u2019s Fourth of July Parade will honor the 140th anniversary of Samson and the first-ever circus coming to town. Find out at more ValleyChamer.org or by visiting the Blaine County Historical Museum.<\/p>\n

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Celebrating the Fourth of July, circus-style By MIKE MCKENNA There once was a time before cellphones, zoos and Top Golf when entertainment wasn\u2019t so easy to come by. The circus coming to town\u2014especially a small town in the middle-of-nowhere Idaho\u2014was a really big deal. Just a few years after Hailey became an official town, W.W. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chamber-corner","8":"category-sponsored"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20952,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20950\/revisions\/20952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}