Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

At a glance

Overview

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium sits on the east bank of the O'Shaughnessy Reservoir on the Scioto River, in Liberty Township near Powell, on parkland the City of Columbus set aside when it built the O'Shaughnessy Dam. It opened in 1927 as Riverside Park, a 21-acre menagerie pushed into being by Columbus Dispatch publisher Harry P. Wolfe after a visit to the St. Louis Zoo. Renamed the Columbus Municipal Zoo in 1937, it passed back to city management around 1950 and in 1970 to the nonprofit Zoological Park Association. Colo, born there on December 22, 1956, was the first gorilla born in a zoo, and director Jack Hanna's television appearances from 1978 lifted attendance from about 360,000 to more than 1.4 million a year by 1992. Franklin County levies from 1985 paid for new regions, and the zoo lost its Association of Zoos and Aquariums accreditation in 2021 over financial mismanagement and animal transfers before regaining it in 2023.

The name

It opened in 1927 as Riverside Park, on land beside the new O'Shaughnessy Reservoir, and was renamed the Columbus Municipal Zoo in 1937. (source)

Native American history

The 1880 History of Delaware County says Liberty Township held no Indian villages when white settlers arrived in 1801, but its forests were a favorite hunting ground. The township's settlers found the Olentangy crowded with Native people, mostly Wyandots, followed by Senecas, Delawares, Shawnees and others, according to the Goodrich family's account. On the Scioto side of the township, Otter Spring, where Mr. Stanbery lived in 1880, was a noted Indian camping place, and the Wyandot chief Leatherlips camped there on his annual hunt for many years. The trail from Sandusky to Chillicothe passed the spring. The same history records mounds and a walled earthen enclosure of nearly ten acres on a bluff of the Olentangy in Orange Township, just across the river from Liberty's southeast corner, and stone-lined graves on the Carpenter farm that it took to be Indian burials. Leatherlips, who had signed the Treaty of Greenville, was executed in 1810 by Wyandots sent by his brother Roundhead, on the Scioto at what is now Dublin, a few miles downstream. The 1880 history does not say where Otter Spring lay in relation to today's zoo grounds, and no archaeological site is recorded on the grounds themselves.

• Otter Spring: camp, Stanbery farm on the Scioto River, Liberty Township; the source does not place it relative to the zoo, Late 18th and early 19th century; Leatherlips' annual hunting camp
• Sandusky-Chillicothe trail: trail, Passed Otter Spring on the Scioto, Historic period
• Carpenter farm stone-lined graves: burial, Carpenter farm, Liberty Township, Delaware County, Reported in 1880; believed Indian burials
• Leatherlips execution site and grave: other, Scioto River at Dublin, Franklin County, a few miles south of the zoo, 1810

Stories

Six reindeer and a publisher

Harry P. Wolfe, publisher of The Columbus Dispatch, came home from a business trip to St. Louis with Mayor James Jay Thomas convinced that Columbus needed a zoo like the one he had seen there. The city said no in 1920, pleading lack of space, but people kept sending exotic animals as gifts, and they were kept at Franklin Park Conservatory. In December 1926 the Dispatch Christmas party featured six reindeer Wolfe had bought and shipped from Alaska, and afterward he gave them to the city with a long list of requirements for their care. By then the city had set aside parkland beside the new O'Shaughnessy Dam. Riverside Park opened there in 1927 on 21 acres, and the reindeer had a six-acre corner to themselves until the first building went up in 1932. (source)

Colo, the first zoo-born gorilla

Director Earl Davis had ordered his staff to keep the gorillas Baron Macombo and Millie Christina apart, afraid they would hurt each other. A young keeper, second-year veterinary student Warren Thomas, let them spend nights together anyway. On December 22, 1956, he found their baby still in the amniotic sac and revived her with mouth-to-mouth breathing. She was the first gorilla born in a zoo, a national contest named her Colo, for Columbus, Ohio, and five years passed before a second zoo gorilla was born anywhere. Colo had three children, and her son Oscar fathered the first surviving zoo-born gorilla twins in 1983. She died in her sleep in January 2017 at 60, the oldest gorilla on record. Thomas went on to direct the Los Angeles Zoo for 16 years. (source)

Jungle Jack

In 1978 the zoo's trustees and Columbus parks director Melvin B. Dodge hired Jack Hanna, a 31-year-old from Tennessee who had run a pet shop and petting zoo and a small zoo in Florida. Attendance was close to 360,000 a year. Hanna became a regular guest on Good Morning America, David Letterman's late-night show and Larry King's talk show, bringing animals onto national television and the zoo's name with them. By 1992 attendance topped 1.4 million, and that year he became Director Emeritus. He also starred in his own syndicated program, Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures, and his books included an autobiography, Monkeys on the Interstate. (source)

A carousel that stayed in Columbus

The restored 1914 Mangels-Illions carousel has been in Columbus since it was built. It was first located at Olentangy Park in the Clintonville area of Columbus and was moved in 1938 to Scioto Ranch Park, where Wyandot Lake later stood. After its restoration it took its first official spin at the zoo during Zoofari 2000, on June 17, 2000. At 5 p.m. on July 28, 2004, a boy from Upper Sandusky became its one millionth rider there. The zoo counted it as one of fewer than 200 survivors of the roughly 5,000 wooden carousels in the United States in the early twentieth century. (source)

Fluffy

In March 2007 a reticulated python named Fluffy came to the zoo on loan and went on display the next month. She was 24 feet long and weighed 300 pounds, and Guinness World Records listed her as the longest snake in captivity. Crowds came, and the new habitat built for her became her permanent home. She died on October 26, 2010, at 18, and a necropsy by the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine found a mass on her ovary. (source)

Losing and regaining accreditation

In October 2021 the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which had accredited the zoo since 1980, denied it accreditation. The association cited financial mismanagement and a record of repeated animal transfers to non-member facilities that supplied young animals, especially big cats, for entertainment. A documentary released that August, The Conservation Game, had alleged that Jack Hanna was involved in the exotic big-cat trade. The zoo, which had named Tom Schmid its new president the day before, appealed, arguing that its reforms were already in place; the association's president said more time was needed to let the changes take hold. (source)

Timeline

• 1810: The Wyandot chief Leatherlips, a signer of the Treaty of Greenville, was executed at what is now Dublin by Wyandots sent by his brother Roundhead. (source)
• 1905: An earlier, unrelated Columbus Zoo opened on 215 acres in Beechwold on May 28 and closed on October 7, four months later. (source)
• 1914: The Mangels-Illions grand carousel was built: 52 horses and two chariots carved by Marcus C. Illions and Sons on a frame engineered by William Mangels. (source)
• 1920: Columbus Dispatch publisher Harry P. Wolfe, back from the St. Louis Zoo, asked the city for a zoo and was turned down for lack of space; donated animals were kept at Franklin Park Conservatory. (source)
• 1925: O'Shaughnessy Dam on the Scioto, named for water superintendent Jerry O'Shaughnessy, was completed, creating the reservoir beside which the zoo was placed. (source)
• 1926: In December the Dispatch Christmas party featured six reindeer Wolfe had shipped from Alaska; he then gave them to the city. (source)
• 1927: The zoo opened as Riverside Park on a 21-acre tract on the O'Shaughnessy Reservoir, with only a handful of species. (source)
• 1930: The Zoological Park Association was founded to help the zoo acquire animals and plan expansion. (source)
• 1932: The zoo's first building, the Columbus Dispatch building for lions and tigers, was finished. (source)
• 1937: The zoo was renamed the Columbus Municipal Zoo and began selling $2 memberships to pay for upkeep and growth. (source)
• 1938: The 1914 carousel, first located at Olentangy Park in Clintonville, was moved to Scioto Ranch Park, where Wyandot Lake later stood. (source)
• 1950: With the zoo struggling financially, it was placed back under the City of Columbus (WOSU gives 1950; Wikipedia gives 1951). (source)
• 1951: The zoo received its first three gorillas. (source)
• 1956: Colo was born on December 22, the first gorilla born in a zoo. (source)
• 1968: The 16-sided, 124-foot-wide Reptile Building, dedicated in November 1967, opened to the public; it is the zoo's oldest building still in use. (source)
• 1970: The city gave up ownership and the nonprofit Columbus Zoological Park Association, led by Dan Galbreath, took over daily operation. (source)
• 1978: Jack Hanna, a 31-year-old Tennessean, was hired as director when attendance was about 360,000 a year. (source)
• 1980: The zoo was first accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. (source)
• 1983: Colo's son Oscar sired Mac and Mosuba, the first surviving twin gorillas born in a zoo. (source)
• 1985: Franklin County voters approved a five-year 0.25-mill levy to replace city general-fund money; the city's contribution ended in 1986. (source)
• 1992: Annual attendance passed 1.4 million. (source)
• 1993: The Wilds, the zoo's partner conservation center in southeast Ohio on land donated by a coal subsidiary of American Electric Power, was established; it opened for public tours in 1994. (source)
• 2000: The restored 1914 carousel, moved from Wyandot Lake, took its first official spin at the zoo on June 17. (source)
• 2004: Voters passed a levy expected to raise about $180 million over 10 years for a 120-acre expansion. (source)
• 2007: Fluffy, a 24-foot reticulated python listed by Guinness as the longest snake in captivity, arrived in March. (source)
• 2008: The zoo reopened the Wyandot Lake park it had bought at the end of 2006 as the Zoombezi Bay water park. (source)
• 2014: The Heart of Africa region opened and won AZA's top exhibit-design honor that year. (source)
• 2017: Colo died in her sleep in January at age 60, the oldest gorilla on record. (source)
• 2021: The Association of Zoos and Aquariums denied the zoo accreditation, citing financial mismanagement and repeated animal transfers to non-AZA facilities. (source)
• 2023: The AZA granted the zoo full accreditation again in March, after an inspection found no remaining concerns. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: index
• news.wosu.org: curious cbus what is the early history of the columbus zoo
• columbuszoo.org: 1927 columbus zoo and its place history
• columbuszoo.org: history reptile building oldest columbus zoo
• columbuszoo.org: zoos historic 1914 mangels illions grand carousel
• columbuszoo.org: columbus zoo and aquarium earns accreditation association zoos aquariums
• columbuszoo.org: columbus zoo announces the death of colo
• colszoo.org: jhanna
• colszoo.org: carousel
• colszoo.com: future
• blog.nationalgeographic.org: worlds longest zoo snake dies
• people.com: columbus zoo loses accreditation over its business practices failed to meet gold standard
• clintonville.com: h zoo
• en.wikipedia.org: index
• en.wikipedia.org: index
• archive.org: cu31924050611106 djvu.txt
• commons.wikimedia.org: index