THE NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK

From its earliest years, the Smithsonian received gifts of live

animals, as well as specimens, but for the first four decades the live

animals were transferred to the United States Insane Asylum (St.

Elizabeth’s) to entertain the residents.  In 1882, Secretary Spencer

Baird and Assistant Secretary G. Brown Goode lured the most

talented taxidermist in the United States to create displays for the

newly opened U.S. National Museum building (now Arts and

Industries Building).  William Temple Hornaday (1854‐1937) had

established a reputation for his innovative animal scenes, such as

the famed orangutan group, “Life in the Treetops,” purchased by

the Museum.   

An avid hunter and explorer, Hornaday had traveled the globe in

search of exotic species.  But in 1886, he was given an assignment that would alter his life

course and lead to the creation of the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, the Bronx Zoo,

and the American conservation movement.  Hornaday

was sent west to collect specimens of the American

bison or buffalo for a museum exhibit, since it was

rumored to be on the decline.  Hornaday had hunted

bison previously, awed by the thundering herds of

millions of animals.  When he returned west in 1886,

he was stunned to find all but a few remnant animals in

Yellowstone Park gone.  Piles of carcasses littered the

prairies.  Hornaday’s letters back to Goode reveal a

conversion experience from enthusiastic hunter to

committed conservationist in a matter of months.   

Hornaday returned with the skins necessary for his family

American bison group exhibit for the National Museum, but also

he brought with him a calf, Sandy, the nucleus of a herd he hoped

to display in Washington to interest Americans in the fate of this

iconic species.  Sandy soon died, but Hornaday acquired other live

buffalo and displayed them, with other animals used by the

taxidermists as models, in the South Yard behind the Castle.  A

“Department of Living Animals” was created in 1887 and soon

proved so popular with visitors that plans were initiated for a

National Zoological Park.  Secretary Baird died in 1888 but plans

moved forward and in 1889 the National Zoo received legislative

approval.  The legislation provided for a new type of zoo that

would be “for the advancement of science and the instruction and

recreation of the people.”  The famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was recruited
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to plan the zoo, and the new Secretary, astrophysicist Samuel P. Langley, also initiated plans to

establish an astrophysical observatory on the Rock Creek Zoo site.  The expansive and

enthusiastic Hornaday soon ran afoul of Secretary Langley, a micromanager who was frustrated

when his observatory was dropped from the Zoo legislation and felt Hornaday was too

independent.  Sadly, Hornaday resigned in 1890, shortly before the Zoo opened.  He went on to

found the famed Bronx Zoo in New York, while the National Zoo, led by the uninspired Frank

Baker, never met the promises of the Hornaday/Olmsted plan or the scientific research

mandate of the legislation.  (And since the Congress would not fund Langley’s observatory,

Regent Alexander Graham Bell provided an endowment for its early years.)  Hornaday’s popular

book, The Extermination of the American Bison, awakened American consciousness to the

decline of native species.

The Zoo opened in 1891, as the

elephants Gold Dust and Dunk were led

up Connecticut Avenue to the new

facility by the first keeper.  William H.

Blackburne, a lion tamer for the circus,

married, settled down, stopped drinking,

and joined the staff of the Zoo on the

same day, spending over a half century

as the head of animal care, without ever

taking a single day off.  Its American

bison exhibit was immediately popular.  

From the outset, the Zoo faced financial

challenges.  Its budget was divided between the District of Columbia and the Smithsonian’s

federal appropriation, with management responsibility given to the Smithsonian Board of

Regents.  It was the perennial stepchild of both the DC and federal budgets for over a half‐

century, and its facilities grew slowly, despite its immediate popularity.  In its early years, it was

often dependent upon loans and gifts by the public as well as traveling circuses, such as the

Adam Forepaugh Shows that would winter its

animals at the Zoo.  The early zoo had only

minimal enclosures and the animals suffered

high mortality, with regular damage from storms

and floods.  Described as being located “a

pleasant carriage ride from the city,” most

visitors would arrive via the Rock Creek Electric

Railway to what is now the Connecticut Avenue

entrance.  By the late 19th century, the “Easter

Monday” tradition was established at the Zoo,

which continues to today.  On the Monday after

Easter, when African American servants had the

day off, they would picnic on Lion/Tiger Hill,

rolling Easter eggs down the grassy slopes.   
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In 1916, when Frank Baker retired at age 75, the zoo still only had two permanent buildings, the

Lion House and the Monkey House; all other animals were sheltered in paddocks and

temporary wooden structures.  Baker was replaced as Zoo Superintendent by Ned Hollister, a

young mammalogist who was more interested in research on mammals, and the assistant

director, A.B. Baker continued to manage day to day operations at the Zoo.  The Zoo now

counted over a million visitors annually and struggled to control the automobile traffic on days

when fifty or more vehicles would traverse the park.  Funds still remained minimal as the nation

focused on World War I.  “Soko,” the chimpanzee, was a popular sight as he would stroll

outside the Zoo every day with keeper Blackburne, until one day he refused to return except

under duress, and his wandering days ended.  Hollister died suddenly in 1924, and a biologist

from the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey named Alexander Wetmore was recruited as Acting

Superintendent.  A year later, Wetmore became Assistant Secretary in charge of the U.S.

National Museum and William M. Mann was named Superintendent.   

Mann (1886‐1960) led the Zoo through a great period of

expansion, despite the challenges of the Great

Depression and World War II.  An entomologist, Mann

was an outgoing charismatic character who traveled in

the best social circles.  As a boy he had run away to the

circus and maintained a lifelong fascination with the big

top.  He had begun donating animals to the Zoo in the

1910s.  His annual Circus Party at the Zoo was legendary

– Mann would purchase tickets to a large section of the

circus for an evening, inviting Congressman,

philanthropists, business and cultural leaders, etc.  The performance was followed by a lavish

picnic at the Zoo that cultivated the favor of the Zoo’s benefactors.  Mann was a favorite of

popular writers, including Alexander Woolcott’s “Around the Town” columns in the New Yorker.  

He partied with the Marx Brothers, Cleveland Armory, Irene Castle and the impresario

Alexander Salmaggi, among others.  The public loved the stories of his great Zoo collecting

expeditions, such as the Chrysler Expedition to East Africa in 1926, the NZP/National

Geographic Expedition to the Dutch East Indies in 1937, and the 1940 Firestone Liberia

Expedition, that greatly expanded the range of the Zoo’s exotic animal collections.

Mann immediately set out to secure new buildings

for the animal exhibits, with a new Bird House

opening in 1928.  Despite the onset of the Great

Depression the following year, Mann pushed ahead

with a major renovation program, securing WPA

funds for a new Reptile House, wing to the Bird

House, Small Mammal House, Great Ape House,

Elephant House, and central heating plan.  Civil

Works Administration workers laid pipes, built

stones fences, paved roads and cleared debris

across the Zoo.  Due to Mann’s friendship with Ned
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Bruce, director of the New Deal Federal Arts Project, the Zoo was the first client of the project’s

artists, who sculpted statues for the tops and entrances to buildings, produced mosaics in the

new Bird House, and painted murals of environmental scenes in the animal enclosures.  When

food shortages occurred during the Depression and war, Zoo staff would pick up condemned

food from grocers across the region, to use for the animals.  And Mann was at master at

cultivating our funders.  At one annual Regents dinner, where the staff would present exhibits

on their work, Mann brought a mynah bird that he had spent a good deal of time coaching.  

When the dour General H.H. Lord, head of the Bureau of the Budget, arrived, Mann gave the

mynah signal and he asked General Lord, “How about the appropriation?  How about the

appropriation?” When Lord replied that he thought that this was impertinent, the mynah

retorted, “So’s your old lady!”  Mann soon had not only the Zoo animals but the White House

and Congress eating out of his hand.  The Zoo grew rapidly in popularity, with the gorillas, N’Gi

who arrived in 1928 and Okero, but they soon succumbed to pneumonia, and Mann, who took

every animal loss deeply to heart, refused to replace them until the advent of penicillin.  They

were followed by such iconic residents as Smokey Bear, who arrived in 1950.

But by the 1950s, the Zoo was again looking

forlorn and out of date.  Mann retired in 1956 and

veterinarian Theodore H. Reed was appointed the

new director in 1958.  Tragedy struck immediately

when a senile grandfather lifted his

granddaughter into a lion enclosure, and the two

year old was killed.  In the public outcry that

followed, Reed refused to euthanize the lion and

channeled concerns about the lack of safety at

the Zoo into the newly created Friends of the

National Zoo and the Zoo MasterPlan, a major

renovation program over the next two decades

that entirely changed the public face of the Zoo.  He also enlisted the help of Washington

insiders, such as Max Kampelman, to revise the Zoo’s legislation to finally place its budget

entirely within the Smithsonian where it would receive more favorable and consistent

treatment.  Reed, and the new Secretary, S. Dillon Ripley, renewed efforts to cultivate the

Congress with annual Zoo picnics and popular animal appearances at Congressional hearings.  

The Giant Pandas arrived in 1972 and greatly

increased zoo visitorship, which now had the

new lion/tiger enclosure,

administration/education building, the Think

Tank, and remodeled houses for most of the

animals.   

From the outset, Reed took to heart the

multiple mandates of the Zoo for research,

education, and recreation of the people.  He

established a scientific research department,
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hiring top young biologists from across the country, and built a hospital and research center.  

He also sought a facility where endangered species could be bred, raised and studied away

from the stresses of public display downtown.  He secured a former U.S. Army Cavalry Remount

Station that later served as a USDA Beef Cattle Station, and created what is now the

Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia,

in 1975.   

By the time Reed retired in 1983, the modern zoo and

research facilities had taken their basic shape.  In the

following decades, led by Michael H. Robinson,

innovative new exhibits took an ecosystem view of

the natural world, notably in Amazonia; animal

behavior, including the primate O‐line; and

endangered species conservation, with the Cheetah

Conservation Station.