https://www.winonadailynews.co...ce-af769fe388f7.html



Link has photo of mounted big lion they took.



Throwback Thursday: When Winonans hunted big game

8 hrs ago



This story originally was published on Sept. 16, 1926, in the Winona Republican-Herald, a predecessor of the Winona Daily News.

Mr. and Mrs. E. L. King, who with their son returned last year from British East Africa with the largest and most complete collection of big game trophies shipped from Mombassa in years, will leave for another big game hunt in East Africa within a month, it was announced today by Mr. King.

Reservations for the trip were completed by cable last night. Ernest King, Jr., their 12-year-old son, who last year brought down a giant rhinoceros and was saved from being crushed to death by a timely shot from his father’s rifle, will not accompany his parents on this trip, but will remain at school.

For scientific purposes

This year’s trip is being made for scientific purposes and it is expected that Winona’s big game hunters will bag a number of specimens that could not be found in British East Africa to the collection now being made up for them in New York.

Lions, leopards and cheetahs will be the main target of the Kings on this trip, which will be into the Tanganyika Territory, formerly German East Africa. Portuguese East Africa will also be visited before their return next June.

Their port of entry to Africa will be Mombassa, from where they will go by rail across Kenya colony to Moshi and Arusha in Tanganyika Territory, where hunters will have a safari of 160 ready to start on the trip into the interior.



Headed for crater

Supplies will be carried as far as possible by motor cars, then by pack animals and finally on the heads of the carriers.


Most of the time will be spent in Ngorongoro Crater, about 200 miles west of Arusha, which is at the end of the railroad. This crater is the largest in the world and the most remarkable zoological garden.

Camped in this crater, 2,000 feet deep, a hole 12 miles in diameter and 35 miles in circumference, all covered with a foot-deep carpet of wild clover, Mr. and Mrs. King will make a selective hunt for big cats which prowl in the crater to make their kills among an estimated wild animal population of 76,000 which never leaves the crater.

A remarkable crater

The remarkable crater where the Kings will make their hunting ground for at least two months came into prominence during the World War when it was discovered that the German soldiers in a critical time were able to keep up their meat rations by hunting wildebeests.

Although Mr. and Mrs. King brought back many lions from their last hunting expedition, a group of six of these now being mounted over a slain wildebeest, they expect to bring back a record bag of specimens of the lion family this year.

Many of the lions in the crater are especially fat, and have fine black manes. The lions of Ngoroagoro are called “daylight” lions because they are seldom molested and are often seen prowling around in the daytime.



Must strike vital spot

“Tackling a lion in daylight is great sport, but the hunter must be sure to strike a vital spot the first shot, for once you start an argument with a lion you have to finish it then and there — and quickly,” declared Mr. King this morning in answer to a query about the thrills of hunting the “king of the beasts.”

“Lions, leopards and cheetah are usually hunted by providing the carcass of a freshly killed deer,” explained Mr. King. The group of lions killed by Mr. and Mrs. King last year are being mounted in the poses usually taken by the lions when closing on the bait. The group will be ready in about another six months and will be brought to Winona when the Kings return next summer.

Will sink fangs into paws

“Shot through the heart, a dying lion will invariably sink his fangs into one of his own paws in his death fury at not being able to reach his enemy,” said Mr. King in telling of some of the habits of the lion he has noted.

From a collection of thousands of pictures taken on the last African hunt, he showed several pictures illustrating this peculiar habit of the dying lion or leopard. Moving pictures were also taken on the last hunt.

“But lion hunting is not the only extremely dangerous shooting,” added Mr. King as he admitted experiencing several tense moments under the charge of wounded elephants, rhinoceros and buffalo.



Mrs. King scores double

He told of the cool courage of Mrs. King last year in scoring a “double” when she walked into a herd of 500 of the dangerous African buffalo to get a shot at a prize black bull. She dropped the head of the herd and barely escaped by knocking down another bull with the second shot in the double-barreled big game rifle.

Her judgment of the value of the bull as big game, he declared, is vindicated by its being listed in London as having the biggest boss of any bull buffalo on record. The boss on a buffalo is a solid armor of horn spreading over the top part of its head between the sharp horns and protecting the vulnerable sop in its head — the brain.

Charges with head lowered

The danger from a charge of a bull buffalo is that it comes on with head lowered and horns fixed, with the boss on its head shielding the brain and heart from the hunter’s shot. A hit in any other spot fails to stop the charge.

The head of the prize buffalo bull is now mounted and in a collection of many trophies of last year’s hunt already received from New York and on display at the J.R. Watkins Company office here.

Another of Mrs. King’s trophies, a giant bull elephant she killed last year, will be ready for the King collection by the time they return from the present trip.



The head has been in the process of mounting for the last year and will be completed in about six months. The giant tusks, containing about $1,500 of ivory, will be fitted into the mounted head.

Thanks Kathy, my oldest daughter lives in Winona.

Thanks for posting Kathy.

Any relationship to Admiral Earnest King of WWII fame?