The Elephant Hotel: Where the American Circus Was Born
New York
The building at the center of Somers was built between eighteen twenty and eighteen twenty-five by Hachaliah Bailey, who had done something unusual: he bought an elephant. Old Bet was only the second elephant to arrive in the United States, and Bailey, finding she drew crowds wherever he took her, began touring with her through the countryside, eventually adding more animals. That touring menagerie became the template for the American traveling circus, and Somers calls itself the birthplace of the American circus for exactly that reason.
The hotel Bailey built from his profits stands today as Somers Town Hall. The Town purchased it in nineteen twenty-seven. The third floor houses the Museum of the Early American Circus.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen seventy-four, and a gilded elephant still stands atop a column at the entrance.
