Bobo's stuffed remains now reside in the collection of Seattle's Museum of History and Industry.įrank Vincenzi succeeded Johnson in 1960, and helped to organize the non-profit Seattle (now Woodland Park) Zoological Society in 1965 to supplement scant city staff and funds. Bobo, a rather grouchy male lowland gorilla, was the most celebrated resident of the Ape House from 1953 to his death in 1968. Knudson was succeeded by Ed Johnson, who led a successful $800,000 bond campaign in 1948 that built a new Feline House, "naturalistic" bear grottoes, and a Great Ape House (since demolished). Knudson resigned in disgust in 1947, declaring "The operation of a zoo is a scientific proposition, but in Seattle it's a political proposition." The Federal Works Progress Administration funded some Zoo improvements in the early 1940s, but the park and its collection languished. Meanwhile, in 1931, the Seattle Parks Board declared that most of Woodland Park should be reserved for "Zoological Gardens" but this did not prevent state engineers from digging a trench for Highway 99 (Aurora Avenue N) through the heart of the park, confining the Zoo to 90 acres on the western or "upper" tract. Children again donated their pennies to feed Tusko, reputedly the largest elephant in captivity until his death in June 1933. In October 1932, the Zoo acquired a second pachyderm by accident when the city impounded Tusko, a giant Asian bull elephant weighing 7.5 tons, which the city confiscated for mistreatment when it was displayed in Seattle. Wide Awake was a popular attraction until 1967, when she died at the age of 54 years. His charges included Wide Awake, the Zoo's first elephant, purchased in 1921 from a carnival for $3,122, the amount raised in a penny drive sponsored by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Knudson had worked on the Zoo staff since 1907. The city did not appoint a formal Zoo Director until 1922, when it named veterinarian Gus Knudson (1881-1951). In 1922, a formal rose garden was planted adjacent to the Zoo's Fremont Avenue entrance. New facilities were added between 19 and Olmsted developed a more detailed plan for the Zoo. In its Apedition, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer gushed that "Animals are Not Cooped Up in Artificial Quarters," a description belied by Woodland Park's ensemble of steel cages and concrete bear pits. The expanded collection included elk, bear, deer, eagles, a pair of ostriches, and a coatimundi, which is a southern American relative of the racoon. donated its Leschi Park menagerie to the city, which relocated the animals to Woodland Park. That same year, the Lake Washington Cable Railway Co. Olmsted recommended a collection of "hardy wild animals" and a tall observation tower on Phinney Ridge. Phinney $5,000 in cash and assuming a $95,000 mortgage.Īs part of his 1903 master plan for the Seattle Parks System, John C. Despite complaints that the park lay too far north from the city center and that the cost was extravagant (roughly $500 per acre), the City Council approved the purchase on December 28, 1899, paying Mrs. 1909) offered the property to the City of Seattle. In 1899, his widow Nellie (Wright) Phinney (d. Phinney's plans to develop the park and adjacent land holdings ended with the national economic "Panic" and his sudden death at the age of 42 in 1893. He also built a hotel, a bandstand, and a ball park, and established a streetcar line in 1890 to shuttle visitors (and prospective home buyers) between Fremont and the park. Phinney (1852-1893) established a menagerie in the northwest corner of his 179-acre Woodland Park Estate in 1889. King County voters approved additional zoo improvements in 1985, which were completed in 1999 under the guidance of director David L. The plan's natural "bioclimatic" exhibits revolutionized zoo design and won numerous international awards. In 1976, neighborhood opposition to improvements authorized by the 1968 Forward Thrust bond election led to a new Long-Range Plan, later implemented by director David Hancocks. In 1932, construction of Aurora Avenue N (Highway 99) severed the zoo from "lower" Woodland Park. Olmsted (1852-1920) designed the first plan for its permanent "Zoological Gardens."
In 1899, the City of Seattle purchased the estate, and in 1903 John C. Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, now regarded as one of the nation's best, began with a small menagerie on Guy Phinney's sprawling Woodland Park estate between Phinney Ridge and Green Lake.
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