The phrase "seeing the elephant" is an Americanism (or American phrase) of the mid to late 19th century.

Seen throughout the United States in the Mexican-American War, the Texas Santa Fe Expedition, the Civil War, the 1849 Gold Rush, and the Westward Expansion Trails (Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail), the mythical elephant was an extremely popular way of expressing an overwhelming emotion.

During the 20th century the phrase faded out of
popularity but when historians started taking note of its re-occurrence in historical newspapers,
journals, and literature they often summed the elephant up too quickly and categorized it as a negative experience.

Desolation and sadness may have been one trait of seeing the elephant, but it was certainly not
the only or even the most prevalent. More often, American pioneers of the Overland Trails talk of the excitement and anticipation of heading west to see the elephant.

Elephant "sightings" often begin with excitement and high ideals only to be disappointing or disenchanting.
The high excitement followed by the low frustrations are what epitomize the elephant as a something most wanted to "see" but few would wanted to "see" again.

A Washington D.C. newspaper article in 1848 gives an unlikely but intriguing origin for seeing the elephant. This article, entitled "Seeing the Elephant," says
the phrase came from a Philadelphia theatre a few years earlier. A play their theater was putting on was in need of an elephant but the few circulating circus elephants were not available and so they made a makeshift elephant and put a man inside to
control the few movements the animal had to make. The audiences loved it and were extremely responsive. Unfortunately, the man they put inside was fond of his spirits, and one night he became so drunk he walked the elephant off the stage and into the music pit. The audience left laughing and joking, "Have you seen the elephant?"

There are several newspaper articles entitled "Seeing the Elephant," but the reason this theater-based comic sighting is so intriguing is the way the article described the drunken man’s reaction to the
catastrophe. "And poor Ned, casting one look, a strange blending of drunkenness, grief, and laughter, at the scene, fled hastily out of the theatre."

His sentiments are a fascinating mixture, and possibly analogous to the mixture of emotions pioneers, miners, and soldiers felt when mentioning the elephant in their journals. The feelings were
not simply good or bad but both along with the additional drunken or uninhibited state of mind and body. They could have felt this uninhibited sensation due to the relative freedom from societal customs and Eastern modes of conduct.