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    Knoxville Zoo
    Knoxville Zoo
    Knoxville Zoo
    Ebook191 pages31 minutes

    Knoxville Zoo

    By Sonya A. Haskins and Jack Hanna

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    About this ebook

    The Knoxville Zoo began as the Birthday Park Zoo in 1948. Due to a lack of expertise and funding, the Humane Society started proceedings to close the zoo in 1971 after the animals welfare came under scrutiny. The zoo was saved by Guy Smith, a local television executive, who took on the job as the zoo s first director at a salary of $1 per year. Smith managed to convince the City of Knoxville and the local community to invest in this wonderful sanctuary. As the zoo s conditions improved and awareness was raised, a focus was placed on breeding threatened or endangered animals. These efforts were rewarded in 1978 with the birth of the first two African elephants to be born in the western hemisphere. This book celebrates the zoo s fascinating history with approximately 200 black-and-white images and detailed captions of its birth, rebirth, and journey toward becoming one of the nation s premier zoological institutions. This is a keepsake that zoo visitors and wildlife enthusiasts alike will enjoy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMar 7, 2007
    ISBN9781439617632
    Knoxville Zoo
    Author

    Sonya A. Haskins

    Author Sonya A. Haskins lives in Jonesborough, Tennessee, with her husband and children. In Jonesborough, she takes the reader on a fantastic photographic journey, detailing many facets of Jonesborough life from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries. Sonya is also the author of Images of America: Johnson City.

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      Book preview

      Knoxville Zoo - Sonya A. Haskins

      Correspondent

      INTRODUCTION

      Perhaps someone’s pet grew too large to keep at home, but however he came, in 1948, an American alligator named Al took up residence at the Birthday Park Zoo¹ at Chilhowee Park, which was run by the City of Knoxville. Much as it is today, Chilhowee Park was then a central location for community events, picnics, parades, and other activities. The park already had a wide variety of native animals—including chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, and deer—so perhaps it seemed logical that there should also be a zoo on the premises. Or perhaps it was just convenient for people to bring their unwanted domestic or exotic creatures to the park and leave them with the willing yet untrained personnel to care for them. Whatever the reason, the alligator was left at the park, and many other animals followed, including ducks, lions, groundhogs, pigs, and monkeys.

      While most of the early animals were donated, an animal was occasionally purchased as well. Sometimes they weren’t purchased for viewing. A mule named Daisy was purchased around 1953 for the meat she could provide the carnivores. After Daisy proved she was capable of working for a living, though, she was put to work hauling a small cart of items around the park and up steep hills when necessary, and at other times, she served as an attraction in the children’s petting area. When she finally died of natural causes several years later, she was then fed to the carnivores, serving her original purpose in the end.

      Daisy’s story is pertinent because it is important to note that it has always been difficult to sustain the zoo. Enclosures, or habitats as they are now called, must be built and maintained. Money has to be raised for expenses such as electricity, gas, water, repairs, and salaries. And of course, animals must receive vaccinations, medical check-ups and treatment, and stimulation. They must also be fed—frequently—which costs money. All the expenses for the zoo must be paid for in some way. An animal in captivity cannot care for itself, and it relies on those around it for shelter and food. Sometimes a captive animal even relies on its keepers for simpler tasks such as grooming.

      No precise records with early zoo statistics have been found, but we do know that by 1970, the city was planning to shut down the small zoo and offered the animals for purchase. The sale of one little lion cub changed the history of a family, the zoo, and Knoxville forever.

      Guy Smith, a local television executive, saw an article in the local paper that stated the city was selling two little lion cubs. Having wanted a lion club since he was a small boy, he came up with the $150 and took his companion home. Though he made life quite interesting, all went well until the lion cub, named Joshua, approached his first birthday. Smith and his wife, Patty, knew that they couldn’t keep Joshua in their residential home much longer, but they also didn’t want to turn him over to the zoo in its deplorable condition.

      Through a series of events detailed in his book A House for Joshua: The Building of the Knoxville Zoo, Smith explains how he and his family did take Joshua to the zoo and leave him there in a cage. They visited so often that an employee in the mayor’s office asked Smith if he would consider running the zoo. Fred Little, the zoo’s head keeper at the time, and Smith seemed to get along well, and there was much work that needed to be done at the zoo. Smith wasn’t interested in city politics or making friends just for the sake of making friends. He had a growing interest in the welfare of all the animals at the zoo, and he was definitely interested in the needs of his lion.

      Most people acquainted with the Knoxville Zoological Gardens will say that this is when the zoo truly began. Smith took a few animals and cages at Chilhowee Park and over several years created beautiful zoological gardens. He convinced the city, local citizens, and even the humane society that this could be a great zoo if everyone believed in the project, put their support behind it, and helped it grow. This is exactly what happened.

      When Smith came to the zoo in 1971, the city and the humane society were literally ready to close the zoo’s doors. Just months before Smith came, several monkeys had been ordered to be put to sleep because one had contracted tuberculosis. Other animals had died. Old Diamond, an elephant who had been donated by Ringling Brothers Circus in 1963, had no adequate living space and tore down the wall to his elephant compound regularly. Soon after Smith became the zoo’s director, at a pay rate of $1 per year, he began talking with local newspaper and television executives and people on the city council to gain support for the zoo. He joined the AAZPA (American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums), began bringing in animals that would attract the public, and focused on improving the image and the reality

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