The Menagerie Before the Zoo: The Sanctuary Years, 1952–1965

1952–1965

The displays: Fort Wayne's zoo-keeping did not begin with the zoo. The City of Fort Wayne's own Franke Park history states what stood on the preserve when the sanctuary opened: "At that time animal displays included four monkeys, a black bear, three wildcats, deer, mountain goats, raccoons, foxes, porcupines, pheasants, ducks, swans, and an American eagle." That is a menagerie by any honest name — caged and penned animals kept for public viewing on city ground — and it ran for thirteen years before the Children's Zoo gave it a successor. The pre-1965 record is therefore positive, not a gap: the zoo of 1965 was built on a going concern, and the preserve's animal displays are the first chapter of this institution, not a prelude outside it.

The animals go out: The sanctuary's animals also worked the city's playgrounds. In 1955 a "circus wagon" donated to the park board by the Pi Chapter of Psi Iota Xi sorority toured twenty-three playgrounds, and the Franke Park Wildlife Sanctuary sent a parrot, a monkey, a Mexican raccoon and a bobcat along as its contribution — an early form of the travelling animal education the zoo would later build into its Zoo Mobile. A decade earlier still, the park's pond had its own small animal record: around 1946, ducks and three swans were donated for the pond; two of the swans flew away and never returned, and it was decided that future swans would be donated to St. Francis College. Those pond birds belong to the park's history rather than the sanctuary's, and are printed here at that size, from the city's account.

The limit of the record: No earlier municipal zoo or menagerie in Fort Wayne stands in the record reached for this history — the park histories, the parks department's chronologies, and the zoo's own published history all begin the city's animal-keeping with the 1952 sanctuary. What the sanctuary's thirteen years looked like year by year — its keepers, its full roster, its losses — is not carried in the sources reached; the city's summary list above is the surviving inventory, and it is printed whole.

Sources:

1. City of Fort Wayne Parks & Recreation Department, "Franke Park History" (the 1952 animal displays, quoted; the pond ducks and swans of c. 1946), cityoffortwayne.in.gov.
2. Allen County Genealogical Society, "Franke Park, Fort Wayne, Indiana" (the 1955 Psi Iota Xi circus wagon and the sanctuary's parrot, monkey, Mexican raccoon and bobcat, from the park record), acgsi.org.