The Great Elephant Migration has arrived in Miami Beach in time for Art Week and they look amazing! The life-size sculptures in this public art installation have taken up residence on the beach between 36th and 37th Streets and will be there until December 8th. This exciting coexistence project inspired our new Elephant Safari exhibition at WMODA, and you can discover more about pachyderms in pottery when you visit us.

The public appeal of pachyderms in Florida is not new. Carl Fisher, the entrepreneur of Miami Beach, bought two live elephants to entertain tourists in the 1920s. Carl II, a two-year-old elephant, was a gift to Fisher from Ed Ballard, who owned six circuses. The baby elephant arrived in Florida in 1921 and was put to work hauling topsoil and clearing mangrove forests on the barrier island that became Miami Beach. Fisher claimed he would “get a million dollars worth of advertising out of this elephant” and used photographs of his elephant to promote Miami Beach throughout the United States.

One of Fisher’s early photo opportunities was the visit of President-elect Warren G. Harding, who was photographed with the elephant as his golf caddy. Carl II then appeared in the silent movie The Lotus Eaterssharing a scene with John Barrymore. He posed in the water with bathers jumping off his back and had a cart constructed to take children for rides. Occasionally, Carl was unruly, and his original trainer quit because of safety concerns. However, he was renamed Nero and bonded with a hotel gardener who became his new trainer until he rejoined the circus in 1925.

In 1923, Fisher received a second elephant gift from Ed Ballard to be Nero’s companion. Rosie became even more famous and upstaged glamorous bathing beauties in photographs. On one occasion, Rosie was invited to “make a deposit” at a bank opening and as cameras flashed, she left an unplanned “deposit’ on the bank’s marble floor! Rosie was taught how to do the Charleston and to hold a golf ball on the tip of her trunk for a professional golfer to take a swing. After the devastating hurricane of 1926, Rosie was put to work propping up the palm trees. She continued to entertain children and tourists until 1932 when her maintenance costs exceeded her promotional value, and she was moved to Atlanta Zoo.