page_title: Detroit Zoo
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Detroit Zoo / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Historical Marker at the Detroit Zoo. In June 2007.
context_page_description: The Detroit Zoo is a zoo located in Royal Oak and Huntington Woods, Michigan, about 2 miles north of the Detroit city limits, at the intersection of Woodward Avenue, 10 Mile Road, and Interstate 696. It is operated by the Detroit Zoological Society, a non-profit organization, along with the Belle Isle Nature Center, located within the city limits of Detroit on Belle Isle. The Detroit Zoo is one of Michigan's largest family attractions, hosting more than 1.5 million visitors annually. Situated on 125 acres of naturalistic exhibits, it is home to more than 2,400 animals representing 235 species. The Detroit Zoo was the first zoo in the United States to use barless exhibits extensively.
context_section_description: The first Detroit Zoo opened in 1883 on Michigan and Trumbull Avenues (area south of Michigan bounded by Church Street and west of 10th Street (then known as Wesley Street)), across from the then site of Tiger Stadium. William Cameron Coup's circus had arrived in town, only to succumb to financial difficulties. Luther Beecher, a local businessman, financed the purchase of the circus animals and erected a building for their display called the Detroit Zoological Garden.  The zoo closed the following year and the building was converted into a horse auction site (the Michigan Avenue Horse Exchange).
  The Detroit Zoological Society was founded in 1911, but the zoo's official opening did not occur until August 1, 1928. At the opening ceremony, acting Mayor John C. Nagel was to speak to the gathered crowd. Arriving late, Nagel parked his car behind the bear dens and as he came rushing around the front, Morris, a polar bear, leaped from his moat and stood directly in front of Nagel. Unaware how precarious his situation was, Nagel stuck out his hand and walked toward the polar bear joking, "He's the reception committee."  The keepers rushed the bear and forced him back into the moat, leaving the mayor uninjured.
  By 1930, the Bear Dens and Sheep Rock had been added, followed shortly by the Bird House. Next to be constructed were the Elk Exhibit, the Baboon Rock, and Primate and Reptile houses. The Detroit Zoo was the first zoo in America with cage-less exhibits.
  The onset of the Great Depression brought to a halt additional major projects, but expansion resumed in the 1940s and has periodically continued since then. During the depression, one of the more popular attractions was Jo Mendi, a four-year-old chimpanzee purchased by the zoo director with his own funds. A veteran of Broadway and motion pictures, the chimp performed an act for the audience. As one press account stated, "he enjoys every minute of the act...He counts his fingers, dresses, laces his shoes, straps up his overalls; pours tea and drinks it; eats with a spoon, dances and waves farewell to his admirers."  When the chimp fell ill in late 1932 after eating a penny, surgeons from area hospitals came to check him out. During his recovery, visitors brought toys, peanuts and more than $500 worth of flowers, along with several thousands cards and letters. Jo died in 1934 from hoof and mouth disease.
  In 1939, sculptor Corrado Parducci created the Horace Rackham Memorial Fountain, popularly known as "the Bear Fountain."  The memorial was one of four major donations made by Mary Rackham in the memory of her late husband Horace, the other three being college buildings named after him in Detroit, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan. From the 1950s through the early 1970s, local weatherman Sonny Eliot hosted a television program, At the Zoo, that was shown on Saturdays on television station WDIV.
  Until 1982, trained chimpanzees performed for visitors, but the act was discontinued at the insistence of animal rights activists. Also in 1982, the zoo began to charge an admission fee for the first time.
  The Arctic Ring of Life, one of North America's largest polar bear habitats, opened to the public in 2001. The Arctic Ring of Life is centered on a 300,000 gallon aquarium. The exhibit allows visitors to view the polar bears and seals from a 70-foot (21 m)long underwater tunnel. The tunnel is 12 feet (3.7 m) wide by 8 feet (2.4 m) tall and is made of four-inch (10.1 cm) thick clear acrylic walls that provide a 360-degree view into the aquarium above.  Other new buildings include the Ruth Roby Glancy Animal Health Complex (opened 2004) and the 38,000-square-foot (3,500 m²) Ford Education Center (opened 2005) which offers school and youth group programs as well as having a theater and exhibit space.
  The zoo made additional news in 2005 when it became the first U.S. zoo to no longer keep elephants on ethical grounds, claiming the Michigan winters were too harsh for the animals and that confining them to the elephant house during cold months was psychologically stressful. The elephants, n
caption: Historical marker at main entrance
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