"Prince" (From Eric Beheim)

This image was scanned from a San Diego Zoo postcard circa the mid-1930s. The elephant pictured is believed to be Prince, described by the Zoo’s founder Dr. Harry M. Wegeforth as “a fine though smallish bull . . . with beautiful, strong tusks.” Despite Prince’s homicidal tendencies, the Zoo acquired him from the Al G. Barnes Circus in 1935 with the intention of breeding him to Empress, one of its first elephants which had arrived at the Zoo in 1923. Special quarters with electrically controlled gates were built for him. Then, the first time Prince was ushered into his new home, he walked over to its 8-foot deep moat and promptly tumbled down into it. Bales of hay had to be stacked up inside the moat so that he could walk up out of it. Although Prince did not appear to have been seriously injured, he died a short time later and without having sired any calves. If Prince was, in fact, his actual name, then the Woodcock files should have more information on him and perhaps some photos of him from his trouping days with the Barnes show. Incidentally, this particular photo might be one of those taken by Dr. Charles Schroeder in the 1930s when he was working at the San Diego Zoo as its veterinarian/pathologist. Dr. Schroeder would spend his afternoons roaming the Zoo grounds with an old Graphlex camera that produced postcard-size photos. On weekends, he’d turn part of the Zoo’s research hospital into a darkroom, where he’d print these photos as souvenir postcards. As soon as the prints were dry, volunteers would run them down to the front gate and sell them to help raise much-needed revenue for the Zoo. (Dr. Schroeder later served as the Zoo’s director from 1954 to 1972.)