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ROW #619 · LEG 92 ITEM 7 · BOUNDARY-PRINTED
No zoological society touches Osceola ground; the society that runs Osceola's zoo is South Bend's: in 1971 the Friends of the Zoo organized — carried formally as the St. Joseph Zoological Society, Craig D. McCowan its first director — as the support arm of a city-run zoo. For forty years the city managed animals, veterinary care, admissions, concessions and the gift shop while the society handled fundraising, campaigns, marketing, events, advocacy and membership (Marcy Dean's account). The money turned twice: in 1979 the first major renovation in fifty-two years cost 1.5 million dollars, after a citizens' vote; and in 1981 the zoo began charging admission — the first admission charge, dated — for an accurate count and for revenue, in the Tribune's later history; every attendance figure below descends from that gate. On 18 November 2013 the park board recorded a basic partnership agreement, and on 1 January 2014 the Potawatomi Zoological Society took over operation and maintenance whole, the zoo remaining city-owned. Its length prints two ways in the city's own documents — a “15-year private/public partnership” (the director, January 2020) and a “5-year lease” effective 1 January 2014 (the city's 2017 brochure) — and both stand. Dean called the handover “a rebirth”; everything in the expansion article is a society-era work.
Sources:
- South Bend zoo file, articles “The Zoological Society, 1971,” “The 1979 Renovation and the First Admission Charge,” “The Society Takes Over” — park board minutes, 18 November 2013; Tribune, 24 December 2013 and 28 September 2015; Zoophoria interview with Marcy Dean, 16 October 2017.