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Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets
An Illustrated History of California's Gold Rush by Wells Fargo Bank (PH 1-27) (34 pages)
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Page: of 34
, antle PO
Going fo See
The Elephant
See
T. Barnum was not above a bit of flummery
when it came to turning a dollar. When he
@ found that his customers were lingering
too long over the wonders in his famous museum, he
placed a sign on the exit which read “To the Egress,”
The more gullible gawkers pushed through, thinking to see some exotic creature from a far land, only
to find themselves on the outside with the door
locked behind them. This sort of chicanery led certain cynics to observe that when you went to Barnum’s circus you paid your money but there was
little certainty that you would see the elephant.
The expression caught on with disillusioned gold
seekers who had paid their money for travel, outfit
and supplies but had failed to find paydirt, and “Going to see the elephant” became the popular synonym for setting out from the East for the California
gold fields.
Who were they, these people who crossed a continent on the slender hope of finding a fortune? They
were not, as some maintain, a special breed. You
meet people like them every day. They were shop
clerks and farmers, mill hands and sailors and second sons. They were the restless ones, and the ones
Across the Plains