Weird Wednesday: One Stubborn Elephant at Lake Shawnee

Photo by Theresa, 2024

A couple of weeks ago, I got the opportunity to tag along with WV Unseen Paranormal to a location that I had wanted to investigate for a LONG time! On May 31st, we made the trek to Mercer County for a private investigation of the former Lake Shawnee amusement park. At this time, instead of dedicating a new blog post to the experience, I’ll just be giving my current Lake Shawnee post a much-needed update. However, I DID want to add a few new blog posts featuring some additional research—including today’s Weird Wednesday about a rather unique traffic situation. The road running past Lake Shawnee has a long history of traffic accidents, many fatal, and while compiling some of these, I stumbled across this story in the Friday, March 25, 1949 edition of the Raleigh Register, a newspaper out of nearby Beckley, WV:

STUBBORN ELEPHANT BLOCKS TRAFFIC IN LAKE SHAWNEE AREA

By the Associated Press

BLUEFIELD-”What’s the traffic jam about?” a motorist asked.

“There’s an elephant blocking the road,” another replied.

“I ask a civil question and what do I get? A blankety-blank silly answer,” fumed the first motorist.

But it really was an elephant that had traffic blocked along U.S. Rt. 19-21 near Lake Shawnee, according to a story told here today. 

W.R. (Pete) Cooke of Bluefield, assistant to the Mercer County superintendent of schools, said he was at the scene. Cooke related that:

One day earlier this week, an elephant somehow broke out of one of the trucks of a circus that was headed North from Florida winter quarters.

The elephant took a stubborn stand in the middle of the road and refused to budge, even for his trainer.

Traffic was held up nearly an hour before a farmer broke the blockade with cornbread.

The farmer brought to the scene some cornbread left over from his noon meal and used it to lure the elephant slowly back into the truck. 

(This isn’t the only Weird Animal story from Lake Shawnee I’ve found recently. In April, I included an article about a rain of frogs on the Lake Shawnee property in a post about Fortean Falls from around West Virginia!)

The Raleigh Register 25 March 1949