Betty the Learned Elephant Potato Head (Town Hall)

A graduation-capped potato in a Rhode Island village remembers an elephant shot there in 1826. Betty the Learned Elephant is a 6-foot fiberglass Mr. Potato Head, one of 47 statues placed around the state for the "Birthplace of Fun" tourism campaign, which the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation ran with Hasbro. WPRI dates the campaign to 2000, while NBC 10 placed the statues around the state in 1999. Communities were asked to sponsor one for $3,500, according to a 2001 Providence Journal-Bulletin article reproduced on the Glocester town website. Glocester's spud was modified to resemble an elephant wearing a blue graduation cap, WPRI reports.

The real Betty has a page on the town's website. It says she was an elephant from Calcutta, India, who first appeared in Chepachet on July 31, 1822, and who was shot and killed in the village on May 25, 1826, at the old wooden bridge over the Chepachet River. The Rhode Island General Assembly proclaimed May 25, 1976, Elephant Day, and villagers placed a commemorative plaque on the bridge to mark the spot.