The

thinks this just may be the earliest known footage of Houston. Naturally, it involves an elephant parade.

It's a Shriners parade from 1915. It's difficult to watch -- the film has been degraded and, more annoyingly, the horizontal hold is out of whack -- but it provides a look into what passed for a grand spectacle, worthy of enshrining in the cutting-edge tech of film, back then.

And the TAMI has hopes it will get a grant to restore the piece.

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"The film was pretty severely shrunken, and we are excited about the possibility of a newly restored copy," says Elizabeth Hansen, TAMI's outreach and education director.

Until then: Elephants! Horseless carriages!! Horse carriages!!

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