Elsie the Cow Exhibit

Plainsboro, New Jersey

The Plainsboro Historical Society, whose museum next to town hall is open twice a month, displays Elsieabilia, along with artifacts from the Walker-Gordon legacy (though, sadly, just photos and drawings of the extinct Rotolactor).

Contemporary Elsies have graced the town's Founders' Day celebration. Yet Plainsboro is curiously detached from their dead celebrity cow, willing to distantly juxtapose a cute animal "grave site" with property in a burgeoning real estate market -- not quite ready for a full-blown Elsie Festival, sports team called the Elsies, or 40-ft. tall mooing statue.

Mention "Grovers Mills" -- a town only a few miles southeast of Plainsboro -- to anyone in the region, and they'll immediately respond, "Oh, you want to see the Martian Landing site?" That's a town with a lot less going for it, cheerfully throwing up saucer monuments and marking War of the Worlds birthdays with invasions by the press and alien intelligentsia.

But Plainsboro has Elsie. True, according to the thoughtful historical displays at the museum, they could also tout a long forgotten trolley line, some rare tiled dairy murals, and a one-day visit in 1940 by presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. But they have Elsie, the most famous cow ever.