The Founding: A Children's Zoo, Opened 3 July 1965

1962 – 3 July 1965

The decision: The preserve's popularity made the argument. In the zoo's own published history, local popularity of the nature preserve led Fort Wayne officials to decide by 1962 to build a full-fledged zoo, with a mission stated from the first: to educate children about animals. The parks department's chronology fixes the machinery to that year — "Beginning of Children's Zoo: advisory committee formed and architect hired." The institution was planned under the name Franke Park Zoo; it opened, and has been known since, as the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo — the parks chronology's dedication line for 1965 calls it the "Children's Zoological Gardens."

Opening day: On 3 July 1965 the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo opened to the public on five and a half acres in Franke Park, at a cost of $500,000, with eighteen animal exhibits. The city's Franke Park history and the zoo's published history agree on the date, the cost, the acreage and the exhibit count. Earl Wells was the original zoo director — the founding director, whose tenure runs through the next three entries. One figure in the record disagrees with the rest, and it is printed rather than smoothed: Jim Anderson, the zoo's second director, looking back in 2016, recalled that "when the zoo first opened in 1965, it was seven acres." The city's and the zoo's own figures give five and a half, and those govern here; Anderson's seven stands as a director's round recollection beside them.

Who built it: The founding was a civic build, not a benefactor's gift and not a tax project. The $500,000 was raised in the community — the Charities section of this record carries the civic structure — and the pattern set then never changed: as a later zoo release puts it, exhibits at this zoo are built with donations from foundations, businesses and individuals, and the rides and gates carry the operations. The founders, as the record names them, are the park board that set the ground aside in 1952, the advisory committee of 1962, the community that raised the money, and the director hired to run it.

Sources:

1. City of Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation Department, "Franke Park History" (the 1965 opening at a cost of $500,000, five and one-half acres, 18 exhibits), cityoffortwayne.in.gov.
2. Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation Department, chronological history, 1951–1970 (1962: advisory committee formed, architect hired; 1965: "Children's Zoological Gardens dedicated and opened"), cityoffortwayne.in.gov.
3. Fort Wayne Zoo, published history (the preserve's popularity and the 1962 decision; the children's-education mission; Earl Wells the original director), as carried in the zoo's history and the Fort Wayne Zoo article's history section.
4. "The Zoo That We Built," Business People, 1 July 2016 (Jim Anderson: the zoo opened in 1965 on "seven acres"; more than 40 acres by 2016).