Bead-Jumbo Small Lavender Donut TB

This trackable has the goal to survive more than five years and be dropped by at least 25 cachers. I maintain records on all my trackables. In the years 2010-22, I released 5,223 trackables. Of these, a total of 4,268 were released only in North America (NAO, meaning chiefly the United States) and never left the region, which includes Canada, Mexico and the islands of the Caribbean. Another 304 trackables were released outside North America (EUO, meaning chiefly Europe) and were never dropped in North America. Still another collection of 651 trackables had drops both in and outside North America. Statistics for the two former cohorts are as follows: % Missing; NAO-71.0, EUO-48.0; Maximum Drops; NAO-55.0, EUO-67.0; Average Total Drops, NAO-5.3, EUO-12.5; Average Drop Rate per Year, NAO-4.6, EUO-7.2. As of 26-Oct-25 this trackable had survived for 6.6 years but it had been moved by only 6 cachers, for an average drop every 399 days, or 0.9 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs.  They are named for Texas towns with interesting names or histories.  Much of the text is from the online Handbook of Texas or texasescapes.com.

Jumbo, off State Highway 315 seventeen miles southwest of Carthage in southwestern Panola County, was settled by planters before the Civil War. James C. Brady, who had established a gin, a store, and a gristmill there by 1885, secured a post office in 1888, the community had to suggest a name.  Remembering P.T. Barnum’s traveling circus, which made a tour by railroad through Panola and surrounding counties between 1882 and 1885, someone suggested that the community be named for one of its star attractions, Jumbo, an elephant billed by Barnum as the largest African elephant in captivity.  By 1896 the settlement had a school and Baptist and Methodist churches. The post office closed in 1912, and the mail was sent to Clayton. In the mid-1930s Jumbo had a school and a number of scattered houses. Its school was consolidated with that of Gary in the 1940s. In the early 1990s Jumbo was a dispersed rural community.