The Ground: Franke Park and the 1952 Preserve

1921–1952, and the ground today

The park: The zoo stands in Franke Park, on the city's northwest side, at 3411 Sherman Boulevard. The park began in 1921, when John B. Franke, president of the Perfection Biscuit Company, donated eighty acres to the city; across ninety years it grew to 339.4 acres, and its whole course — the day camp, the Foellinger Theatre, the Diehm Museum, the trails — is told in the Parks and Plans section of this record. The zoo is the park's most visited tenant, but it is a tenant: the ground is the park department's, a fact that shapes the operating arrangement told below.

The preserve: In 1952, Fred B. Shoaff donated 54.36 acres that were added to Franke Park, and a Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary opened to the public on the ground. The parks department's own chronology and the city's Franke Park history agree on the year and the gift. The preserve was, from the start, more than trails: the city's history records that animal displays stood on it from 1952, and the popularity of those displays is the documented reason the city decided, a decade later, to build a proper zoo. Every animal the zoo has kept since has lived on this Franke Park ground.

Sources:

1. City of Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation Department, "Franke Park History" (the 1921 Franke gift of 80 acres; the park at 339.4 acres; the 1952 Shoaff donation of 54.36 acres and the Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary's opening), cityoffortwayne.in.gov.
2. Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation Department, chronological history of the parks, 1951–1970 (1952: "Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary opened to the public in Franke Park. Fred B. Shoaff donated 54.36 acres"), cityoffortwayne.in.gov.
3. Allen County Genealogical Society, "Franke Park, Fort Wayne, Indiana" (the 1952 sanctuary and Shoaff gift, from the Franke Park master plan record), acgsi.org.