Where, oh, where did the pachyderm go?

Mt. Pleasant wants to erect marker for Suzie Q

MOUNT PLEASANT — The only known TV station pachyderm mascot is up for a place in the town historic marker program, but first officials need someone with a memory like an elephant to tell them what happened to the critter.

Elizabeth Abbey/Provided

Tony Glenn and Suzie Q perform at a children's birthday party at the Channel 2 studio on Jan. 6, 1957.

On Thursday, the Historical Commission considered Suzie Q, the elephant attraction at Channel 2. In 1954, Drayton Hastie, the TV station owner, bought an Indian elephant for $2,700 from a New York importer of exotic animals. It was a publicity stunt to lure viewers from WCSC-TV. Unanswered is where Suzie Q was put out to pasture in 1963.

"It's quite a little mystery. How do you lose an elephant?" said Michael Robertson, a town planner.

Acting on a tip, Robertson called the Cincinnati Zoo on Thursday, but it had no record of the elephant. The commission is appealing to the public. Does anyone out there know where the elephant went?

Commission member Pam Owen-Early, who has been researching the issue, wrote what is now the concluding line for the marker text. "This pachyderm packed pleasure and adventure in her trunk and imprinted indelible memories on the Lowcountry."

In addition to being an areawide attraction for kids, Suzie Q sometimes visited neighbors on Coleman Boulevard. "Occasionally, she would escape and come trumpeting across the highway into Bay View Acres," according to "Mount Pleasant: The Friendly Town," released by Arcadia Publishing in 2001. "Once when a sudden storm frightened her, she pulled up the oak tree she was tied to," the book says.

She lived on the station front lawn until she was shipped out after nine years at WUSN-TV, the predecessor of WCBD-TV.

Creating a marker for the TV station elephant is a different tack for the commission and its historical marker program, which ranges from American Indian shell rings dating to 4,000 B.C. to Snee Farm, the country home of Charles Pinckney where George Washington visited.

Reach Prentiss Findlay at 937-5711 or pfindlay@postandcourier.com.