A large, elephant shaped building was dreamed up, designed, and patented by James V. Lafferty Jr, then built in 1881 at the cost of $25,000. Her purpose? To attract people to sandy local known as South Atlantic City (now Margate), where he had quite a bit of land he wished to sell in lots. By 1887, Lafferty wanted out, and sold off all of his holdings, including Lucy, to the Gertzen family, who would own Lucy for the next eighty years. Over this time, she served as rental home and a tavern, but mostly served as a tourist attraction.

By the end of the 1960's, Lucy was a mess. Then in 1970, the Gertzens sold the land on which she stood at Cedar Grove Avenue to developers and retired to Florida. Fortunately, the year 1969 has seen the formation of the Margate Civic Association, with one of their purposes being the preservation of Lucy. They went to the city and got them to agree that Lucy could be moved to a municipal- owned parcel of park land two blocks south at Atlantic Avenue. They then got the developers to agree to donate the building to them. However, the developers insisted that Lucy must be removed within thirty days.

In response to this enormous task, the Save Lucy Committee was formed. $23,000 was needed for the moving costs, as well as the cost of a new foundation for Lucy at her new home, so the Committee swung into action with a blitz of bake sales, craft fairs, and door-to-door donation campaigns. This efforts, along with a personal note for $10,000, got the job done, and on July 20, 1970, Lucy went rolling on down Atlantic Avenue to her new home.

Since that time, the Save Lucy Committee has completely restored the exterior of this historic elephant to past glory, restored much of the interior (including creating a museum, and has gotten Lucy listed on the National Register of Historic Places. She stands today, looking out over the ocean, as thousands of people visit her.

I myself had visted Lucy with my parents when I was a little kid, but she had always been closed for repairs when we were there. Likewise, I had visted her more recently, but always long after she had shut down for the day, or the season. So August 24 was going to be an exciting day, and myself and my friend Adam were going to actually go inside of Lucy. Adam, as you can see in the picture below, could hardly contain himself, and was by no means questioning my sanity on wanting to go inside a giant elephant. We bought our tickets, walked around the outside of Lucy, admiring her fine toenail painting and getting her to pose for some pictures. Then it was up the stairs hidden inside her rear leg and into the belly of the beast, where we viewed some exhibits located along her sides, and watched a short video on her history. Then we climbed up another set of steps to the howdah (which is a riding carriage), which presented a view of the ocean and Margate itself. Then it was back down the steps, out the rear leg, and off into the wide world with a notable difference, for now each of us could proudly proclaim "I walked through an elephant!"

I'm sure that will look great on my resume.