Crazy Mary

One of the claims to fame for my neck of the woods is that officials in Kingsport, Tennessee decided, in 1916, to execute an elephant named Big Mary who had killed her abusive handler by, among other things, stomping on his head until it went "pop." Being good proponents of all things involving lynching, the local authorities decided that hanging was the best way to dispatch the poor beast, after several other methods had been tried without success.

However, Kingsport then was not the industrial mecca that it is now, and so the town officials were forced to take Mary over to Erwin, Tennessee to the train yards and use the large cranes available there to string her up (see accompanying picture). I mention this because there was a punk band in Johnson City called Crazy Mary who had a logo that said "Hung Like an Elephant!" Now, that's punk rock, baby!