Potawatomi Zoo: the city's zoo, at cross-reference size

Indiana's oldest zoo moved once, and the record brackets the move. The zoo's own timeline says that in 1921 the Potawatomi Zoo was established in Potawatomi Park, the riverbend ground it still occupies. Secondary accounts date the move earlier, to 1912, when a deer herd came over from Leeper Park and animals were also sheltered at a house on Wall Street, a former Anti-Tuberculosis League property, until 1921. This article prints the bracket and both claims; the reconciliation, if the record ever supplies one, belongs to the ZOO section. What is not bracketed: a buffalo arrived at the park in 1917 and was named for F. W. Roueche, and in the Depression the Works Progress Administration built the zoo's first permanent structure, the Cat House, dated 1936 on the zoo's own telling with a 1940 variant standing in secondary accounts.

The modern zoo. The zoo today covers 23 acres in Potawatomi Park with more than 400 animals. It is owned by the city and operated by the Potawatomi Zoological Society, and it has held accreditation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums continually since 1987. Its birthday parties, zoo camps, train and carousel are the living edge of the story this section tells; the animal-by-animal history, the keepers and the collections, are told in full in this site's ZOO section, and this section does not duplicate them.

Sources

1. Potawatomi Zoo, "Zoo History" (potawatomizoo.org): 1921 establishment in Potawatomi Park; WPA Cat House 1936; AZA accredited continually since 1987; Indiana's oldest zoo.
2. City-Data South Bend history and avidlocals Potawatomi Zoo history: 1912 move with deer herd; Wall Street house, former Anti-Tuberculosis League; 1917 buffalo named for F. W. Roueche.
3. South Bend Venues Parks & Arts (sbvpa.org): 23 acres; more than 400 animals; city owned, operated by the Potawatomi Zoological Society.