Lucy the Elephant, New Jersey’s favorite 6-story, 90-ton pachyderm, is turning 143 years old, and the nonprofit that operates this National Historic Landmark in Margate is throwing a birthday celebration no elephant can ever forget on Saturday, July 20.
The family friendly festivities will run from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and include water slides, mini-golf, Skee-Ball, an obstacle course, snow cones, popcorn, and more, according to the Save Lucy Committee, the nonprofit that was formed in the 1970s to preserve and maintain her. Guided tours of Lucy’s interior will also be available.
“At nearly 143 years old, Lucy has never looked better or been more popular,” Rich Helfant, the executive director and CEO of the Save Lucy Committee, said Saturday. “Having just been voted the No. 1 Best Roadside Attraction in America by USA Today readers, we’re more excited than ever to celebrate her birthday this year.”
Lucy the Elephant was built in 1881 by a real estate developer as a gimmick to attract potential buyers for land he was selling south of Atlantic City. Visitors arrived by a train that stopped right at Lucy and were guided up 130 steps inside Lucy’s left leg to the riding carriage, or howdah, on her back. There, buyers had a 360-degree view of the land for sale, which at that time consisted of dune grass, pine trees and a few wooden fishing shacks.
Six years after Lucy was built, at a cost of $38,000 using over a million pieces of wood and 22 tons of tin sheeting, she was sold to a Philadelphia family. The 65-foot-tall elephant spent the first part of the 20th century as a restaurant, business office, cottage, and tavern. However, by the 1960s, Lucy had fallen into such disrepair she was set to be demolished.
The Margate Civic Association, which later became the Save Lucy Committee, moved the elephant about 100 yards to a city-owned parcel by the beach and embarked on an ambitious restoration project. Lucy reopened to the public again in 1974 and two years later was designated as a National Historic Landmark during the nation’s bicentennial.
July 20 is celebrated as Lucy’s birthday because on that date in 1970 she was saved from the wrecking ball and moved from her original Cedar Grove Avenue site to her new home on Decatur Avenue. The one-room train station from which visitors disembarked to tour her in the 1880s also moved to Decatur Avenue and became the attraction’s gift shop.
Over the decades, SLC has fundraised and undertaken numerous restoration and maintenance projects on the elephant’s interior and exterior, including a 15-month long, $2.1 million overhaul completed in 2022 that resurfaced and replaced her metal skin with nickel-copper alloy that is more resistant to corrosion in marine environments.
For more information about joining Lucy’s 143rd birthday party, go to Lucy’s Facebook page here.
To make a tax-deductible donation to the Save Lucy Committee, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization, for the maintenance and preservation of Lucy the Elephant, go here.
