Bridgeport, Connecticut: Barnum Museum: Centaur Skeleton (In Transition)

A rare tornado swept through Bridgeport on June 24, damaging the P.T. Barnum Museum.

In 2014 the Barnum Museum purchased "Centaur of Tymfi," a life-size centaur skeleton created by Skulls Unlimited, the company that supplies the bones for the Museum of Osteology. The centaur had been commissioned by Bill Willers, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, who placed it in an official-looking display case and unveiled it in 2012 at the International Wildlife Museum in Tucson, Arizona. Proud of its creation, Skulls Unlimited began promoting the centaur on its website, only to be told by Willers to keep it quiet. He had conceived of the centaur as a way to test the public's willingness to believe the unbelievable, just as P.T. Barnum did.

Not a lot to see, but since it's by donation only I can't complain.

On display at the Barnum Museum can be seen the mounted hide of the famous baby elephant "Bridgeport." On February 2,1882 at the winter quarters of the Barnum, Bailey, and Hutchison Circus in Bridgeport, the elephant Queen -- one of of Barnum's 22 elephants -- had only the second recorded elephant birth in America. It was a famous event -- over 60 scientists from around the world came to witness it. P.T Barnum arrived by sleigh 20 minutes after the birth to see for himself the baby elephant reportly no bigger then a Newfoundland dog. Bridgeport died April 12,1886, at the very spot he was born. Like Jumbo, Barnum had Bridgeport's hide mounted, where it can be viewed today at the museum.

I wanted to let you know that the Barnum Museum does NOT have the original Feejee mermaid. The mermaid on display there is an artist's reconstruction of a Feejee mermaid. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed in the museum so I couldn't take any, but I think I wrote down what the plaque on the case said.