Woodland Park Zoo history

By 1902, city funds were improving Woodland Park.

As part of his 1903 master plan for the Seattle Parks System, John C. Olmsted recommended a collection of "hardy wild animals" and a tall observation tower on Phinney Ridge.

An annual report in 1904, the first official evidence of Woodland Park Zoo, included the following inventory: “8 peafowl, 3 owls, 1 muscovy duck, 2 brown bears, 1 coatimundi, 5 elk, 6 eagles, 4 ring doves, 3 brant geese, 2 coyotes, 1 raccoon, and 3 seagulls. ”

The first heated building at Woodland Park Zoo was constructed in 1907.

By 1909, Woodland Park Zoo’s inventory had expanded to 11 bears, 7 monkeys, elk, bison, eagles, wolves, deer, red fox, badgers, a parrot, cockatoo, seal, guinea pigs, geese, turkeys, pigeons, pheasants, an anteater, and “a squirrel from Chile. ”

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.

In 1922, a formal rose garden was planted adjacent to the Zoo's Fremont Avenue entrance.

By 1928, the Woodland Park Zoo’s inventory had grown to 326 animals representing 58 species.

Lower Woodland was left as an informal woods, but in 1930 City Engineer W.B. Barkuff developed a plan to bisect Woodland Park with a six-lane highway.

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.

Children again donated their pennies to feed Tusko, reputedly the largest elephant in captivity until his death in June 1933.

His successor, Edward Johnson, spearheaded a successful bond issue in 1948 which funded construction of several bear grottoes, the Ape House, the Aviary, and a state-of-the-art Feline House, the first facility of its kind to feature a glass barrier instead of iron bars.

In 1949, under the direction of Zoo Director Ed Johnson, the bear and feline grottos were designed.

The zoo’s first cheetah and chimpanzee also arrived in 1951, as did Bengal tigers Tongoo and Sultana.

The first giraffe ever exhibited north of San Francisco was given to Woodland Park Zoo in 1954 by auto dealer S. L. Savidge.

Sea otters joined the expanding menagerie in 1955, the first ever in captivity.

In 1958, animal dealer Morgan Berry returned from India with orangutans, gavials (long-nosed fish-eating crocodiles), a female monkey and a three-month old elephant.

Director Ed Johnson was promoted to parks superintendent in 1961, and long-time zoo manager Frank Vincenzi succeeded him as zoo director.

Wide Awake was a popular attraction until 1967, when she died at the age of 54 years.

Additional dollars were found to build a Children's Zoo and Tropical House (design by Fred Bassetti), which opened in 1968.

Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman then appointed a zoo advisory committee to establish guidelines for a new direction, and in the late spring of 1975 work began on a new plan under the direction of David Hancocks as design coordinator.

They prepared a radical new Long-Range Plan for naturalistic exhibits emulating the world's "bioclimatic zones." After the plan debuted in 1976, Hancocks was hired as Zoo Director.

Although the new exhibits won top international honors and although the city imposed a Zoo admission fee in 1977, funds for further improvements dried up.

The zoo’s first world-class exhibit, a gorilla tropical forest and adjacent monkey islands, opened in 1979.

In late 1983, Hancocks angrily resigned.

In 1984, Towne joined with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to launch a community fund drive to replace the Zoo's decrepit Elephant House.

King County voters approved the bonds on November 5, 1985.

Open to the public daily, it received 1.05 million visitors in 2006.