Belle Isle was once home to a zoo. As far back as 1886, the area around Central Avenue and Inselruhe was home to small animals, including raccoons and birds, gradually growing to include wolves, bears, deer, elk, seals and even a polar bear. By 1909, the zoo on Belle Isle had 150 animals across 32 acres.

None of those critters, however, would be as popular as Belle Isle’s elephants. And they would need a special building to call home.

The children demand an elephant

The story of Detroit’s elephants and the Belle Isle Elephant House all began in 1922 with a little girl who wrote a simple letter. Ruth Hile, of 2509 Ferris Ave., wrote to The Detroit News and suggested that, if every kid in the city would just donate some of their milk money, then they could have an elephant for all to enjoy at the Belle Isle Zoo. That was true, the City said, but the zoo didn’t have anywhere to house such a creature. That led Ruth Campbell, of 3110 Helen Ave., to write into The News to suggest that if those schoolchildren were to dig just a bit deeper and come up with a quarter - the equivalent of about $5 in 2026, when you factor for inflation - then the city could get an elephant and a building in which to house it. This was what the children of Cleveland did to make it happen there, she said. She reasoned that there were 100,000 kids in Detroit, so that'd be enough to raise $25,000 (about $496,000 in 2026) - enough for a "very durable elephant and a nice house for him to live in." Campbell sent in 50 cents and asked, "Why can't we buy one like the Cleveland children did? Detroit has twice as many children, so, really, we ought to have two elephants."

Parks & Boulevards Superintendent Henry W. Busch, who was in charge of the Belle Isle Zoo at the time, said that a nice elephant would set you back about $2,500 (about $50,000 in 2026) - and that $15,000 would get you a nice “elephantorium” that was suitable for year-round exhibition purposes, about another $300,000 in 2026 dollars. Parks & Boulevards had previously sought $50,000 from the City’s Common Council for an animal house for the zoo, but had been shot down. The Detroit News wrote May 17, 1922, that, “although the Council has refused for three years to make appropriation for an animal house on Belle Isle, Detroit children refuse to be discouraged over the prospect of having an elephant for their individual amusement and edification. “In fact, they are bound and determined to have one.”

The News saw this as an opportunity for some good publicity, so it launched a campaign to have an “Elephant Day” on May 18, when children across the city could pitch in their pennies, nickels and dimes to the cause. The News also took it upon itself to “sponsor” the purchase of the elephant and pick up the difference between the actual cost and what the kids could raise.

But where to keep an elephant if the Common Council wouldn’t approve money to build one suitable digs? When asked whether a part of an existing barn on Belle Isle could be outfitted to accommodate an elephant, Busch replied that it wouldn’t be safe for the elephant - or the barn, for that matter. But an elephant was coming, whether the city was ready for it or not.

“More than 150,000 children contributed, and within a few days, the fund was over $2,000,” The News wrote in a retrospective in 1948. This would earn the beast the nickname of the "School Children's Elephant." The purchase was even front-page news in the Los Angeles Times on June 11, 1923.

An animal dealer offered a baby elephant or a 17-year-old one, and the children of Detroit opted for a tusked tyke. At a cost of $2,750, or about $38,000 in 2026, the children of Detroit had gotten their elephant.

The kiddos also voted to name her Sheba, with the reason, longtime journalist Malcolm Bingay recalled in the Detroit Free Press on July 26, 1932, being "that Sheba was their designation of a swell-looking girl, 'a red hot mamma.' The word Sheba is still current slang for a 'good looker." It came from a film 'The Queen of Sheba,' in which Betty Blythe, the most pulchritudinous of all the film vamps of her day, started the nation by her fleshly presentation of a movie director's idea of King Solomon's court. How the clergy and the organizations for public morals protested! But, of course, that was before the present era of sun-kissed backs and other anatomical exfoliation."

The News assigned reporter Rex G. White to accompany Sheba on her journey to Detroit and write about their experience. Appointed the title of the paper’s “elephant editor,” White would write braggadociously about Sheba and his role in making her arrival in Detroit happen - as those who rub shoulders with celebrities often do - off and on for more than 20 years.

For more on Sheba’s story, including how she arrived in Detroit, we explore each of the elephants that roamed the Belle Isle savannah toward the bottom of this article.

First, let’s look at the city’s failed attempts to shelter Sheba that led to the creation of the Belle Isle Elephant House.

‘Sheba’s House’

After initially being housed inside an insufficient structure that took Sheba less than 24 hours to break out of, she was moved into cramped quarters inside an old horse barn that already housed four camels, a zebra, 27 horses and a mule deer.

When Sheba arrived at 3 years old, she weighed just 1,600 to 1,800 pounds, depending on the source. (Articles from decades later about Sheba put her weight at just 600 pounds on arrival, but that is far below normal tonnage for an elephant of that size. Therefore, we are going to use the figures reported at the time she got to Detroit.) Just two years later, she was up to nearly 3,000, and by the time she was an adult, she would clock in at close to 9,000.

"Already, (Sheba’s) big gray-black shoulders are rubbing the roof beams," The News wrote Oct. 25, 1925, while also noting that she "hates snow and cold" that she had to put up with inside the barn.

Adding to trouble inside the already overcrowded barn, Mayor John W. Smith presented a second elephant, Pat, to the children of Detroit in April 1924.

Sheba made it clear that this living arrangement wasn’t going to work for her any longer, and staged another jailbreak on Feb. 4, 1925. She “voiced a protest against her living conditions by breaking away and tearing down part of the barn before she was caught,” The News recalled March 16, 1926, noting that Sheba had grown from “baby-elephant size to strenuous maturity.”

Despite Smith slashing the Department of Parks & Boulevards’ budget by 50 percent for 1926-27, the Detroit Common Council finally approved $50,000 - the equivalent of a bit less than $1 million in 2026 - for what informally came to be known as “Sheba’s House.” After all, Councilmember Sherman Littlefield quipped, “We must take care of Sheba or she will take care of us,” referring to the elephant’s escape escapades.

In July 1926, it was announced that a design by architect Gustave Mueller had been selected. The Belle Isle Elephant House would arise across from the Belle Isle Zoo on the west side of Central Avenue just north of Inselruhe. There would be four stalls, with plans for rhinos and hippos to be housed there, as well, though the zoo had not yet acquired any of those.

To ensure that the building was “elephant-proof,” the building was constructed of reinforced steel and concrete. The building was two stories tall and measured 70 by 90 feet. It was finished with stucco walls and terrazzo cement floors, and topped with a Spanish tile roof. The public viewing lobby was 20 feet by 84 feet. As for Sheba and Pat, they had an indoor swimming pool with hot and cold water, depending on the weather, and had plenty of light and ventilation. A vegetable-storage room in the basement would ensure they stayed well-fed, and the second story was used for stashing hay and grain. The rear of the building had an outdoor compound for the gentle giants to stretch their mammoth legs.

The Elephant House was formally opened Feb. 6, 1927. However, Sheba and Pat would not have the run of the place all to themselves. The building also initially housed the four camels and three sea lions in the pool designed for future hippos at one end of the building.

On Aug. 20, 1935, a fire threatened to destroy the Elephant House when a broken hose on an acetylene torch being used to fix a gate caught the building on fire. Pat and Sheba were inside at the time, but were ushered to safety. The damage turned out to be only minimal.

On Dec. 7, 1939, a truck dropped off a new roomie for Sheba and Pat, a male hippo from the upper reaches of the Nile. The hippo was sponsored by Dossin Products Co., and schoolchildren were invited to submit names in a contest. The winner? Pepsi. It just so happened that Dossin was a bottler of Pepsi products for the Detroit market. Kinda makes you wonder whether the voting was rigged.

Big changes

In 1941, the Belle Isle Zoo was transferred from the City of Detroit Parks & Recreation Department to the Zoological Parks Department, meaning the Belle Isle Zoo was now under the same purview as the Detroit Zoo.

Four years later, the Belle Isle Elephant House was completely rehabilitated and repairs made. Two years later, in 1947, a Children's Zoo was established on Belle Isle. This brought the zoo to more than 30 acres, and it featured nearly 50 species of animals.

The biggest changes at the Elephant House, however, would be those who called it home. Pat would become violent and unruly and was euthanized in 1943. Sheba would fall victim to cancer and died in 1959, ending her nearly 40-year reign on the island. New elephants would replace them: Shara, Kita, Suki, Bruno, Daba and Stormy. (More on them further down.)

But keeping elephants isn’t cheap, and given the challenges that the city was dealing with by the late 1960s - namely, the loss of residents, businesses and the associated tax revenue - Belle Isle Zoo officials said they could no longer afford the $20,000 a year to house and feed them (about $188,000 a year in 2026). Kita was relocated to the Detroit Zoo in suburban Royal Oak, Mich, in 1966. On Jan. 15, 1969, Shara and Suki, the Children’s Zoo elephants, would follow. Sadly, Shara didn’t survive the move, succumbing to complications from the sedation.

The suddenly elephant-less Belle Isle Elephant House was closed in 1969, though it would later be used for storage. Three years later, however, it was announced that the second Belle Isle Bath House was to be demolished, and City officials decided that they would take down the old Elephant House at the same time. The Elephant House was completely razed by February 1973. Some of the rubble from both buildings was used to fill in part of Lake Muskoday. The Audubon Society opposed the move, but the decision went forward anyway.

Unpacking the pachyderms

There were eight, possibly nine, elephants that called Belle Isle home between 1923 and 1969. Here are their stories in the order that they arrived on the island.

1. SHEBA (1923-1959)

The most famous of Belle Isle’s tusked titans was Sheba. She was as close to a celebrity as an animal can get, having captured the public’s fascination and remaining one of Belle Isle’s biggest draws for nearly four decades.

And she’s still on the island, more than 100 years later - more or less.

As detailed above, the 3-year-old Asian elephant was purchased in 1923 with milk money donated by more than 150,000 schoolchildren across Detroit.

But how does one move an elephant more than 1,200 miles in 1923? Well, it wasn’t easy and took five days.

Getting the elephant into the room

She was acquired from Hagenbeck’s, a Germany-based importer and exporter of wildlife for zoos and circuses in the early 20th century. Rex G. White, a Detroit News reporter, was sent to accompany Sheba on her journey to Detroit and hype up readers back home as the elephant made it ever closer to her new home.

Sheba departed Hagenbeck’s depot in Hoboken, N.J., for New York City at 10 a.m. on June 11, 1923. There, she was loaded onto a special pneumatic-tired truck made with a custom body by the Federal Motor Truck Co. to provide transport for the baby elephant. The road trip by truck was said to be the longest ever taken by an elephant - and in fact, it was believed to be the first ever, according to news reports of the time.

“Leaving New York on Tuesday after considerable trouble in making 'Little Sheba' understand that this truck was a harmless piece of machinery and would not hurt her, the journey started," the Hartford (Conn.) Courant wrote July 15, 1923. "After she was installed, she seemed to take kindly to the novelty of the ride and was even interested in the crowds. At 42nd Street and Broadway, so many taxi-cab drivers turned to look at the strange sight of an elephant riding in regal style in her own carriage that a traffic jam ensued.”

From the Big Apple, Sheba was driven up the scenic highway along the Hudson River, stopping for the night at Poughkeepsie, "where Sheba was bedded down with nice, soft straw and given some nice, juicy carrots, part of a bale of hay and several loaves of bread for her supper," the Courant continued. Back on the road, the truck puttered on through the Berkshire Hills, then on to Albany and then Utica, where a second stop was made. On Day Three, she arrived in Rochester, and the next day, Sheba rolled into Buffalo, where she “snatched the new straw hat right off the head of the mayor of Buffalo and ate it - and we had to buy a new hat,” White recalled in The News on July 10, 1946.

There, at 6 p.m. she was loaded onto the Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Co. steamer City of Cleveland III, where she finally set sail for the Motor City, arriving the following day, around 9 a.m. June 16, 1923.

She stepped off the boat and into her new home, where she was warmly greeted by thousands of Detroiters, including many of the children who had helped buy her. The St. Francis Home’s Boys Band played the songs “Home Sweet Home” and “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.” A parade then formed, and she was marched up Third Avenue, past The Detroit News Building and on to Old City Hall, where, on behalf of Mayor Frank E. Doremus, Councilman John C. Lodge officially welcomed Sheba to Detroit before sending her on her way to Belle Isle.

“Excellent quarters, luxurious for an elephant, have been arranged, according to Brig. Gen. E.G. Heckel, commissioner of Parks and Boulevards. ‘Sheba ought to be very happy in her new home,’ he says,” The News reported June 15, 1923. "Everything that we could think of to promote her comfort has been done, and we have not forgotten to plan for the pleasure of the children, making it convenient for them to visit their friend."

The enclosure was built midway between the ostrich house and the bear cage, and was about 24 feet square and open on all sides. An outer fence was erected to keep visitors about 10 feet from Sheba. The trouble was, this setup didn’t keep Sheba in, and she was apparently unimpressed with these so-called “excellent quarters.”

Just 24 hours after moving in, Sheba had busted out.

Jailbreaks lead to her own digs

"The hour of 4 a.m. had just struck, and Belle Isle was bathed in silence and dew," The Detroit News reported June 18, 1923. "Every animal was asleep. Every human being was asleep - or supposed to be. ... Suddenly, a cry rang out. It was a policeman's voice: 'Sheba is out. Sheba has escaped.' The brand new, beautiful elephant shelter, with its pretty cement floor, its high-piled hay, its ornamental roof, was as empty as empty could be. Sheba had disappeared after a 24-hour residence."

Policemen "beat the bush" and began frantically looking for the wayward elephant - an elephant hunt, if you will. "In the soil of the flower beds and across the velvet lawns were great footprints. Her trail was discovered,” The News continued. “Two blocks from the elephant shelter, they saw her. She was strolling along, apparently in no hurry. The hurry began when they caught up with her. ... She shot her trunk up and out rang a bugle call of fear. Away she lumbered, and the amateur elephant hunters discovered that an elephant can go as fast as a horse, almost, when fear lends her wings."

It took half a dozen men and a whole lot of ear and head scratches to calm her down and finally coax her back to her enclosure. “Adventure No. 1 of Sheba in Detroit was over," The News said.

For the rest of that first year and the next, things were fairly quiet. Sheba would often roam around her yard, occasionally mischievously squirting water through her trunk at visitors. The Detroit News gave her a cart to pull loads of children around in. She was “taught” the alphabet and how to play basketball. She played ball, bumping it back to her trainer with her trunk. She was fed lots of treats and apples, notoriously stealing them from her trainer’s pocket.

After her first escape, Sheba was moved to an old horse barn, where she bunked with the aforementioned zebra, four camels, a mule deer and 27 horses. Things were cramped, but for a while, she was a decent enough roommate, though she was known to reach her trunk into the stall next to hers and steal hay from her neighbor, a bull camel. Though her stall was lined with steam pipes to try to keep her warm, winter in Michigan is not like the Sahara, and the barn was drafty. Then there were the mice that snuck in.

“At first she was terrified of mice in the barn, and the first night when one scampered across the floor, she roared in terror and tore about the stall,” The News wrote March 30, 1924. “Now she does not even turn her head at them.”

By early 1925, Sheba was weighing in at a ton and a half, and as she had grown, she had also grown tired of her living arrangement. Around 2 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 10, 1926, Sheba broke out again, wrecking $500 worth of fixtures (about $9,300 in 2026 money) before she “smashed through the door to wander violently in the snow in protest against improper living conditions in the barn,” The Detroit News wrote Feb. 11, 1926, under the headline “Sheba dislikes one-room flat.” Zookeeper Jack Timmons told the paper that her latest jailbreak was “also an argument for the $50,000 animal house asked from the City Council.”

After being recaptured, Sheba went "back in her stall next to the cold and drafty door today, restlessly pacing back and forth in her enclosure, which is much too small for an elephant of nearly 3,000 pounds," The News continued. "There is no repentance in her heart; in fact, according to Timmons, she acts as though she might try the same stunt all over again."

"I really can't blame her much," Timmons told the paper. "The barn was constructed for horses instead of zoo animals and is certainly no place for an elephant." He cited the winter temperatures inside the barn and a lack of facilities for proper exercise among the reasons. "We shouldn't even chain her, but we're forced to shackle her to the floor to keep her there. ... She's mighty unhappy."

Coupled with the addition of a second elephant, Pat, in 1926, her breakouts led to the erection of the Belle Isle Elephant House, which opened Feb. 6, 1927.

Incidentally, White, the News reporter, also was the one who got to decide Sheba's official birthday.

"We looked up things - bills lading, or bills of sale, or something like that," White wrote in The News on July 10, 1946. "They were dated 'July 10,' and they said, 'Sold, a female elephant of three years, guaranteed to be of sound body as of this date.' There you are. What more proof do you want? Sheba's birthday is July 10. Take it or leave it."

How a date of sale translates to a date of birth remains unclear, but White, being the unofficial Sheba biographer, made it stick. Birthday parties were thrown for Sheba on July 10 a number of times over the years.

Detroit mourns the ‘Queen of Belle Isle’

After getting her new pad, Sheba never broke out again and continued to thrill generations of Detroiters, though the wagon rides stopped. As she turned 27 years old, "Sheba is gentle and affectionate as ever, but 5 tons of affection, no matter how tender, is something to reckon with," The Detroit News quipped July 10, 1947.

By June 1958, it became clear that Sheba was ailing. She had also lost nearly 1,000 pounds, about a tenth of her body weight. Zoo veterinarian Dr. William K. Applehof, who had been one of the children that donated to buy her 35 years earlier, said that an inoperable tumor the size of a volleyball was found that had forced shut Sheba’s right eye.

"We are keeping our fingers crossed," Applehof told The News for a Nov. 23, 1958, article. "Miracles happen in the animal world, too."

The zoo tried to comfort her with sugar cane and corn stalks - considered elephant delicacies. Meanwhile, "zoo officials around the nation are watching Sheba's medical bulletins," The News continued. "Until now, elephant tumors have been small and confined to the legs and torso, where they can be removed."

Appelhof treated Sheba with compresses and vitamins "with the hope the tumor will 'resorb.'"

But the end was near for Detroit’s beloved beast.

Sheba was found in a coma and died on Jan. 2, 1959, at age 39. Most elephants live to be 80. The official cause of death: malignant carcinoma. For the first time in 36 years, the children of Detroit were without their elephant.

"However brief her life, she had the distinction of being more loved by more people than other elephant that ever lived," The News eulogized her the day after her death.

Because of her size and weight, Sheba was buried on the island among the trees behind the Elephant House, with a Parks & Recreation Department power shovel being used to dig the hole. With the Elephant House long gone, her exact final resting place is unknown, but she’s still there on Belle Isle, more than 100 years after she first arrived.

2. PAT (1926-1943)

Sheba was so popular, Detroit Mayor John W. Smith decided that one good pachyderm deserved another. The Detroit Times broke the news April 2, 1926, that Mayor John W. Smith was giving the city’s children a male elephant to join Sheba. According to records, Pat was born in India in 1916 and arrived in the U.S. for circus duty six years later. That made him 10 years old when Smith bought him. He was 8 feet high and weighed 6,000 pounds, making him twice Sheba's size at the time, even though he arrived in Detroit 300 pounds underweight.

This new elephant arrived in Detroit about 9 a.m. April 19, 1926, at the Wabash railroad freight yards at the foot of Twelfth Street in a straw-strewn box car. A 2-ton truck was brought to haul him to Belle Isle, but it was quickly deemed insufficient. "He'll break that thing with one foot," said Aaron Yarnell, the keeper who accompanied the elephant to Detroit, according to The Detroit Times on April 19, 1926. Belle Isle zookeeper Jack Timmons sent for a 5-ton truck, delaying transport by hours - and further annoying one already annoyed elephant.

That’s because Pat was malnourished at the time and arrived with a “red rim to his eye.” Yarnell said that the colossal critter had arrived in "bad humor," with the journey from the circus’ winter quarters in French Lick, Ind., having been made unpleasant by chilly temperatures and a lack of heat in the box car. The Detroit News described Pat as being "exceedingly forlorn" when he arrived in his new home.

And after the larger truck arrived, Pat decided he didn’t want to go, and refused to leave his box car.

"One glance at the dreary, bleak skyline and the snowflakes, and Pat backed into his abode, determined to stay," The Detroit News wrote April 19, 1926. "Only by steady prodding and boosting was the elephant made to take a position on the truck."

The name game

Like with Sheba, a contest was held to name the city’s new elephant, this time through The Detroit Times. In April 2026, students from the Lincoln School wrote to Mayor Smith and suggested that the elephant be named Kipling, after author Rudyard Kipling, who had written stories about elephants, including one about how the animals got their trunks. Other suggestions included Bobo, Caesar, Muggsy, King Tut, Jumbo, Happy, Solomon and Bell Hop, an apparent nod to the elephant's home on Belle Isle.

Another leading vote-getter was the name Sheik - and "if the elephant is not named Sheik, a lot of youngsters will be disappointed," The Detroit Times wrote April 8, 1926.

Others suggested the elephant be named in honor of Smith, since he was the one who gifted it to the city’s children. The mayor refused. "Tell the boys and girls who suggested Johnny and Smithy and Mayor and other names that are taken from my own that I am much obliged," Smith told The Times. "But it won't do. Outsiders wouldn't understand it. They would come to Belle Isle and ask, 'What is the elephant's name?' And if they were told that his name was Johnny Smith, they would say, 'Oh, I see, the mayor named him for himself."

The elephant’s name was supposed to be the one that received the most votes, and some of the names had hundreds of backers. But Yarnell, the handler who had accompanied the elephant on the railcar, had already named him Pat, and the name had stuck.

"Although a contest is being conducted to determine a name for the new addition to the Isle zoo, railroad men who accompanied the elephant here had no difficulty deciding what to call it. To them, the elephant was known as 'Pat,'" a name given to it by one of the beast's caretakers,” The Detroit Times wrote April 19, 1926. "The mayor and the elephant editor will go over all the letters and select the names that were suggested by the most children. Then all the children in Detroit will be given an opportunity to vote for a name. And the name that receives the most votes will be given to the elephant."

But, for reasons that weren’t reported, the contest was scrapped, the children’s naming ideas were tossed aside, and the elephant would be known as simply Pat for the rest of his life.

Pat moves in

When Pat arrived on Belle Isle on April 19, 1926, “the newcomer was cooly received by Sheba, who apparently saw in him a rival for the affection of Detroit children," The Detroit Times wrote the following day. "After taking one look at him, the young female fled to a corner of her stall, where she remained yesterday. Once or twice, the new elephant thrust his trunk into his mate's stall, but she resented his friendly advances and trumpeted loudly. Thereafter, he kept his proboscis in his own quarters and paid no more attention to the female."

Because the elephant is a mascot of the Republican Party, W.G. Taylor donated a Shetland pony mule to the Belle Isle Zoo in July 1926 to even the political playing field.

Not all elephants are built the same

While Sheba was noted for her gentle temperament and loving nature around kids, Pat was the opposite.

Pat not only had a tendency to destroy stuff and damage the Elephant House, he was considered a brute who frequently attacked his handlers and couldn’t be trusted around kids.

On Oct. 2, 1935, The Detroit Times reported that the "worried look John W, Smith, council president, is wearing today is due to the threat of the council to make him take back a gift he gave the city. And the threat is no laughing matter. The gift is an elephant."

Apparently, Smith was presented with a bill for $170 (about $4,200 in 2026 valuation) for repairs to the Belle Isle Elephant House after Pat "recently registered defiance." Councilman Fred W. Castator said, "solemnly, that if it happened again, he would move Smith be forced to take back his gift," The Times wrote.

Seemingly having had enough, Pat was shot and killed Aug. 3, 1943, “for his series of mad escapades," the Detroit Free Press wrote four days later.

"Some of his acts threatened the lives of those who had befriended him for years, and had overlooked his wild capers in an attempt to pacify him. But to no avail,” the newspaper continued. "Pat has been a bad actor ever since he was presented to the City as a gift from former Mayor John Smith over 15 years ago.

"Mute evidence of his wildness were the twisted 2-inch iron bars in his cage and the battered chains which held his huge hoofs."

Dr. J.R. McCarthy, vet for the Detroit Zoo, put a slug from an Army rifle into Pat's head. The execution was kept from the public for days to avoid public outrage.

3. SHARA (1956-1969)

Shara was a wild-born, female East African elephant born in 1955, and arrived in Detroit on June 27, 1956.

Like with other elephants before her, a contest was held to name her, this time conducted by the Detroit Free Press that July. (That gave all three of the city’s daily newspapers one elephant each to be in charge of sponsoring.) More than 1,000 entries were submitted, with 12-year-old Robert Fred McNutt, of 7551 Webb St., offering up the winning name, a nod to his 3-year-old sister, Sharon.

"Shara seemed good because all the boys will share her," Robert told the Free Press for a July 15, 1956, article. He won an all-expense-paid weekend in New York, including a stay at the Statler Hotel.

The 4,800-pound Shara would continue to thrill Detroit children for the next decade. She would be joined by Kita three years later and Suki in 1965. Kita was moved to the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak, Mich., in 1966, leaving Shara and Kita to roam Belle Isle’s Children’s Zoo by themselves.

However, just three years later, budget woes would lead to the City to decide to cut costs by getting rid of the two elephants. Suki was moved from the Belle Isle to the Detroit Zoo on Jan. 15, 1969, and Shara was moved that March 3.

Sadly, Shara didn’t survive the move, succumbing to complications from the sedation on March 6, 1969. The 14-year-old elephant had been in a semi-coma for four days. Michigan State University scientists believe she died of fluid collecting in her lungs because she couldn’t stand up after being sedated.

4. KITA (1959-1989)

The beloved Sheba had just died in January 1959, leading Detroit Zoological Society Commissioner Leo J. Fitzpatrick to donate a replacement to lessen the heartbreak of the city’s children.

"My kids grew up knowing Sheba," Fitzpatrick told the Free Press for a May 21, 1959, article, "and I want my grandchildren to have the same fun."

With Fitzpatrick’s $3,500 gift (about $40,000 in 2026), Kita stepped in to fill the massive elephant-size void – or try to, anyway; Kita was 18 months old, weighed 300 pounds and stood only 39 inches high. Sheba had weighed 10 times that. The baby elephant was the smallest to ever come to Detroit.

Kita was an Asian female that had been born in the wild in Myanmar (then Burma). She arrived in New York City by boat on May 16, 1959, from Rangoon, Burma, and was then flown to Detroit, arriving at the Belle Isle Children’s Zoo on May 20, 1959.

“She clumped briskly out of the cage in which she had been airborne from Burma by way of New York, and started waving her trunk for peanuts in approved American fashion," the Free Press wrote the day after her arrival.

She spent her days at the Belle Isle Children’s Zoo and her nights at the Belle Isle Elephant House rooming with Shara, whom she apparently found to be somewhat boring company.

“Late one Sunday afternoon, in the middle of the summer, the keepers were walking her back to the Elephant House, a quite normal routine, when (Kita) suddenly decided to break loose,” according to “The First Fifty Years,” a 1974 book about the Detroit Zoo. “Before the two keepers could restrain her, she took off running across the island at full speed. The keepers sprinted behind her. She just ran and ended up on the bathing beach. She galloped from one end of the beach to the other with the keepers in full shouting pursuit. Somehow Kita managed to step over every reclining body until she got to the end of the beach, where she decided there really wasn't any place to go and stopped. The keepers docilely walked her back to the Elephant House.”

Kita got a tub of water to play in and a cornucopia of elephant delights.

“Her food, three times a day, will be oatmeal cooked for 15 minutes and thinned with canned milk, nine loaves of white bread, some bananas and a little timothy hay,” the Detroit Free Press wrote May 21, 1959.

She also had an apparent appetite for sports equipment.

On July 6, 1961, a tennis ball bounced into her pen, and, "like any normal youngster, Kita promptly swallowed the object," the Free Press wrote July 8, 1961.

It would be a near-fatal mistake for the 3-year-old.

Veterinarians worked nearly around the clock for two days to save her. Finally, on July 8, Dr. William K. Appelhof was able to push the would-be killer ball through her throat and into her stomach using cathartics and a 7-foot three-quarter-inch rubber hose - “plus some fancy footwork to stay clear of the 1,000-pound youngster’s thrashing trunk,” the Free Press wrote the next day. Kita, unsurprisingly, did not enjoy the experience, being "playful at first, then angry - and eventually sick and weak from lack of rest and food," the Free Press said.

She refused to swallow food, likely because of an irritated throat, so she had to be force-fed 2 gallons of food through an 8-foot hose.

About a month later, Kita went back to work entertaining young visitors at the Belle Isle Children’s Zoo on Aug. 17, 1961. She was “feeling quite perky after a long layoff,” but would work only two hours a day for a while, the Free Press reported the following day.

A few years later, Kita was moved to the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak, Mich., in 1966 and added to the elephant show. This left Shara and Kita as the only two elephants on Belle Isle at the time.

Kita was euthanized at the Detroit Zoo on Dec. 23, 1989, because she was suffering from arthritis, pneumonia and an infection of her feet.

5. SUKI (1965-1969)

Suki was a female elephant born in the wild in Thailand in 1964. She was purchased from animal dealer Louis Goebel and arrived at the Detroit Zoo on April 28, 1965. At the time of her arrival, she was the zoo’s smallest elephant at 320 pounds, but was expected to grow to nearly 3 tons.

Suki made her debut on Belle Isle on May 20, 1965. She was named by 9-year old Sandra Banks, of 292 Tyler St. in Highland Park, who had won yet another Free Press naming contest, beating out about 14,000 entries. Kerrin Kotora, also 9, of 32132 Woody St. in Fraser, suggested the same name, but the Free Press received Sandra's entry first.

"I liked the sound of Suki and sent it in right away," Sandra told the Free Press for a May 20, 1965, article. "I liked it because it sounds something like Soupy Sales," a famed Detroit weatherman and TV personality.

Sandra, a second-grader, got the day off from Willard Elementary School to be the guest of honor at the Belle Isle Children’s Zoo for the introduction of the 320-pound baby elephant. Also present was James S. Holden, then 89, who had donated the funds for the Children’s Zoo in 1947. Little Sandra also snagged $100 from the Free Press and a lifetime pass to the Belle Isle Children’s Zoo.

But all the pomp and circumstance would be short-lived, as the City looked to cut costs by getting rid of its elephants on Belle Isle. On Jan. 15, 1969, Suki was led into a plywood shelter on a huge trailer meant to protect her from the winter cold and taken to the Detroit Zoo. Yet, the Detroit Zoo already had elephants of its own, so it sold Suki on Feb. 15, 1969. After leaving Detroit, she bounced around to the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus and several other zoos, from the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Mo., to the St. Louis Zoo to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, Wash.

She would spend nearly 30 years on the Puget Sound, until being euthanized at 60 years old on Aug. 10, 2024. She had been suffering from a possible stroke, as well as chronic arthritis and uterine tumors.

6. BRUNO (1969)

Bruno was a troublemaker. The wild-born male Asiatic elephant was about a year old when he arrived at the Detroit Zoo on May 20, 1969. Unlike most other elephants, he was rented from the International Animal Exchange, not purchased.

In 1969, Bruno bit 10-year-old Gino Loukas of Sterling Heights, Mich., on the arm at the Belle Isle Children’s Zoo. Gino received 13 stitches in his right arm. His family sued the City for $115,000 ($934,000 in 2026, when adjusted for inflation) but settled three years later for just $2,750 ($22,000 in 2026).

According to the complaint the Loukas family filed against the City, “as Gino stood near a 4-foot fence, which separated an elephant from the viewing public, the elephant did fling part of his trunk over the fence and grabbed claimant’s arm with his trunk and put it to his mouth and severely bit him.”

The City’s attorneys recommended settling because, in their words, the boy was hurt due to “the manner in which the City kept a dangerous animal, to wit, an elephant,” the Detroit Free Press reported Feb. 23, 1972.

Bruno was returned to the animal exchange Sept 8, 1969.

7. DABA (1973-1975)

"The Belle Isle Children's Zoo just wasn't the same after they took Shara and Little Sukie away three years ago," the Detroit Free Press wrote May 27, 1973. "I mean, a zoo is not a zoo without at least one elephant?”

Daba was 10 to 12 months old when she arrived at the Detroit Zoo on March 2, 1973. The 650-pound Asiatic elephant was moved to the Children’s Zoo on Belle Isle that May. Daba was purchased from the International Animal Exchange with funds donated by the James and Lynelle Holden Foundation, which had established the Children's Zoo in 1947.

"She's a dusty, hairy 11 month-old charmer,” the Free Press noted May 27, 1973, and unlike Bruno, “she has pledged on a stack of peanut brittle not to take a nip out of anybody,”

About 8,000 Detroiters suggested names for her in the winter of 1972 after it was announced that she was on her way from Kolkata, India. Gary Reggish, a 6-year-old from Allen Park, Mich., suggested the winning name in a contest run by The Detroit News in March 1973 that garnered 20,000 entries. Gary said that the name came from a few of the elephant's favorite things. The D stood for dancing; A for Asia, where she was from; B and A for bananas and apples, her favorite foods.

She was a big hit at the Children's Zoo in 1973, so plans were hatched to build a new elephant house on Belle Isle. After all, the City had shortsightedly torn down its existing elephant house earlier that year. But City engineers determined that they couldn't build suitable confines with running water and sewage for anything less than $25,000 (about $200,000 in 2026 value) - and only $15,000 was available (about $118,000 in 2026).

"We might be able to put up something temporary like a carport structure," Walter Bammel, head of the city's engineering design bureau, was quoted as saying in the May 16, 1974, edition of The News. "It would have to be sturdy enough for her to rub her rump and also provide protection from the weather."

Daba had packed on 500 pounds since the previous fall, and now was tipping the scales at 1,500 pounds. Before long, she was going to weigh 2 tons, so a glorified carport was not going to cut it.

"I'm kind of desperate of getting something up," Dr. Robert F. Willson, director of the Detroit Zoo, told The News for the May 16, 1974, story.

For reasons that aren’t clear - possibly because they couldn’t build her a home on the island - she was sold back to the International Animal Exchange on Sept. 9, 1975. Willson had retired earlier that year, so it’s possible there wasn’t anyone able to get the new elephant house done, especially with funds being tight.

8. STORMY (1977)

Stormy stomped around Belle Isle in 1977, but there are no records of her in the Detroit Zoo’s files. This makes it likely that she was run through a concessionaire or a rental by another agency, not the zoo. She was 9 feet tall and weighed 6,000 pounds. "For 75 cents, any youngster can think he's a sultan or maybe even Tarzan," the Free Press noted June 27, 1977. That's about $4 in 2026 money.

It’s not clear when Stormy left the island, but it appears she was only on Belle Isle for the summer of 1977.

SAMMY (1933-1938)

Sammy was an Indian elephant given to the Belle Isle Zoo by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1933. What is unclear, however, is whether Sammy ever actually went to Belle Isle. There is some doubt that two bull elephants - with Pat being the first - would have been allowed to co-mingle in the Elephant House at the same time. Most of the articles mentioning Sammy also reference only the Detroit Zoo. However, we are including his story here in case it can later be confirmed that he did, indeed, spend time on Belle Isle.

He was born in 1908 and had been in the circus since 1911. He arrived on the island on July 10, 1933 - Sheba’s birthday.

The circus was in town at the State Fairgrounds for a three-day run. "Sammy, who had behaved like a gentleman throughout (the day), was just what (the City zoo) was looking for," the Free Press wrote July 17, 1933. "Arrangements were made for the circus elephant to become a zoo elephant immediately."

Sammy, it would turn out, would not be a gentleman for long. In fact, he would become so unmanageable, there were fears he would jeopardize the lives of zoo workers. He bent 1½-inch bars on the fences and cages, said to be evidence of his ill temper and aggression.

"Time was when Sammy was a well-behaved young bull, the joy of the Ringling Circus," the Free Press wrote March 6, 1938. "For 30 years, he appeared daily in the ring to the plaudits of thousands. Suddenly, from what darkling wellsprings of the soul may never be known, there arose but a single desire - to slap the everlasting hurrah out of any two-footed creature that came his way."

The paper wrote a day earlier that “Sammy was a good-for-nothing rogue … and 6 tons of outlaw cannot be accommodated in a zoo."

Detroit Zoo Director John Millen told the paper that "we couldn't do much with him," he said. "He just didn't like the world. ... He had to be chained, and lately he's been so mean, we decided to get rid of him before a serious accident happened."

Sammy was put down March 5, 1938. A single shot from a .30-caliber Army rifle to the forehead did the deed. Some 50 people came out to watch what amounted to an execution.

"Man-hating elephant at zoo liquidated by firing squad," the headline in the Free Press read the following morning. "Contemptible Old Sammy makes no protest as he is led to wall in chains and shot. …

“A shudder ran through his frame, and his wicked psyche went winging to whatever special preheated Gehenna has been prepared for blood-hungry elephants," the Free Press wrote. "Let there be no maudlin tears over Sammy's fate - his was a richly deserved end."

A rendering company bought his body to turn it into soap. Millen said he planned to turn Sammy’s feet into wastepaper baskets.