This is a picture showing Hamm City Hall, an impressive building that hosted one of the three North-Rhine Westphalia State Courts of Appeal up to the year of 1959, when the Court moved to a newly-built higher rise, just a few hundred yards to the east. The fountain well is meant to be a symbol for the communities now being part of the city: Bockum-Hoevel, Heessen, Pelkum with Herringen, Wiescherhoefen, and Rhynern surrounding the core city of Hamm.

We're commencing our walk around town, starting off from City Hall. It's an awesome-looking castle-like building that dates back from Prussian times in the 19th century.

Our next stop is the Hamm State Court of Appeal.    

The Court moved from the building now functioning as City Hall to this higher rise in 1959. A new wing even higher has been added in 2004 and is to be seen below.

Now we're going to move on to Maximilian Park. An elephant-like-looking building was created in 1981 when the North-Rhine Westphalia Gardening State Fair took place on the site that is known today as Maximilian Park. Before World War I, there had been a coal mine. I don't know why, but it happened to drown, business came to an end, everything was sealed off by means of concrete. The site turned to wilderness for a couple of decades.
When planning the Gardening Fair, officials thought this place would be suitable for remodeling. They took to renovating the remains of the old buildings, assisted by local artists. The old coal washing building had been turned to 'World's Largest Elephant', an idea of Horst Rellecke, now overlooking the park with its fine gardening samples.

	This elephant  in the midst of overgrowing trees and shrubs is nevertheless one of the best known hallmarks of the city of Hamm. Exploring the hidden giant is becoming sort of a temptation for a growing number of visitors from all over North-Rhine Westphalia as well as from neighboring states, even the Netherlands.
Viewing it from side or front, the Elephant is a challenge to people from the city itself, as is for folks having spent a couple of hours on the freeway going there.