We Mid-Wilshire folk love our mammoths stuck in the tar pits. They were an unlikely sighting the first time you saw them, but have grown to be  familiar fauna in the heart of one of America’s biggest cities. It used to worry my young daughters peering through the fence: the struggling mama stuck in the muck, the baby at the edge of the broiling pit. But have you ever wondered how these life-size fiberglass replicas of the imperial mammoth got there?
The LA Times Framework section has a beautiful black and white photo piece on the delivery of the first mammoth, via WV bug no less, from sculptor Howard Ball’s studio in Torrance to Hancock Park in 1967. Â Take a look:
LA Times: Mammoth Delivery to La Brea Tar Pits
