Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
Washington, D.C., 1924. "Charlie Becker, midget trainer with Singer's Midgets, walked the smallest elephant of his troupe to Merchants Bank, and made a deposit for Keith's Theatre. The elephant delivered the money satchel directly to the receiving teller." This was of course a less enlightened era, decades before the advent of cage-free tellers and free-range banking. View full size.
The Merchants Bank moved into this five-story location (seen here on Shorpy) one half-block from the Department of Treasury in 1918. Like many other Washington commercial buildings of that era, its interior was designed by architect B. Stanley Simmons.
the elephant and the bank teller.
I'm always amazed to see in Shorpy photos how dirty the floors in public places were back in the '20s and earlier. Imagine any bank today having a floor that filthy, and I don't think they can blame the elephant.
It looks posed to me, but it might be a service elephant. Maybe a memory aid.
He played the Mayor in the 1939 version of "The Wizard of Oz."
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5