07/16/2023
Zoo history
Happy 150th Anniversary of Zoo's Founding!
Thane Maynard
Executive Director
You likely have noticed over the years that in numerous places including the stone wall entrance to the zoo on Vine Street it states that the Cincinnati Zoo was “established in 1873.”
Well, Today marks the 150th anniversary of the official founding of the Zoological Society of Cincinnati. After the Civil War immigrants to America wanted to bring some of the old-world charm they remembered here to the more rough and tumble New World.
In our case that was Germans like Andrew Erkenbrecher and his peers who wanted some of what they left in their homes in Stuttgart and Frankfurt. They wanted to recreate a beautiful urban garden filled with exotic animals that supported cultural events that were important to the community.
We are living their dream to this day.
It’s remarkable that the Cincinnati Zoo led the way then as we continue to do today. Cincinnati leaders were ahead of their time and our "establish" date of 1873 actually predates the opening of the first Zoo in North America (Philidelphia Zoo in 1874).
Our open date, September 18, 1875, makes us the second oldest Zoo in North America. We were, however, twice as big as the first and modeled after European zoos. One of the early founders, Armin Tenner, advocated adopting the European move toward more naturalistic habitats. We embraced that concept over the years and have made great progress in the last 50 years to provide animals with More Home to Roam!
The gardens were always central to the design of our Zoo. In fact, we were officially founded as The Cincinnati Zoological Garden. That is one thing that set us apart long ago and still today.
I wonder what the early discussions that led to the Zoo's founding looked like. Was there a sketch on a napkin? Mount Auburn Gardens & Billiards Saloon, later named Mecklenburg's Gardens, opened in 1865. Perhaps Erkenbrecker and the other, mostly German, founders met there to brainstorm?! There are also records that show the zoo founders met to discuss plans in Over The Rhine at what is now the Mad Tree Brewery hall on Vine Street down the hill from the zoo.
Also interesting is the fact that many of the original animals were donated by Erkenbrecher and other private citizens.
Many prominent Cincinnatians who still have descendants in the area supported the effort to establish a Zoo. Among them are, Joseph Longworth, Charles Phelps Taft, John Shillito, George K. Shoenberger, and more. Some of these families still support the Zoo today!
If you would like to know more about the history of the Zoo’s founding, here’s an excerpt from David Ehrlinger’s book From Past to Present.
The Founding of the Zoo
In the early 1870s there were no major European-style zoological gardens in the United States, although New York's small Central Park Zoo, which opened by 1864, and Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoological Garden, which opened in 1868, displayed small collections of animals. On July 1, 1874 the Philadelphia Zoological Garden opened. It was the first major zoological garden in the U.S.A. with a zoological society that had been earlier chartered in 1859. It was 33 acres with a comprehensive design that was largely patterned after the London Zoological Garden. In the early 1870s in Cincinnati a wealthy German immigrant and a life-long animal lover, Andrew (Andreas) Erkenbrecher, was discussing with his business associates founding a major zoological garden. Compared to the Philadelphia Zoological Garden, Cincinnati's zoo would have a stronger Germanic influence in its origin, design, operations, and collections.
In 1872 Cincinnati experienced a widespread outbreak of caterpillars which defoliated the city's trees. In response Andrew Erkenbrecher, who owned one of the nation's largest starch manufacturing companies, organized a group of leading citizens to form the Society for the Acclimatization of Birds. In order to control insects, the Society imported hundreds of insect-eating European species, including starlings and English sparrows. Similar introductions were, unfortunately, made by other well-meaning acclimatization groups in eastern cities, so that starlings and English sparrows soon became established in North America.
In 1873 Andrew Erkenbrecher directed the secretary of the Acclimatization Society to write to the renowned German zoologist and zoo director, Dr. Alfred Brehm, for information on establishing a zoological garden. Erkenbrecher read Brehm's encouraging response at an Acclimatization Society meeting in June and proposed that a zoological society be formed to establish a large zoological garden in Cincinnati. There was enthusiastic response and on July 11, 1873, the Zoological Society of Cincinnati was incorporated as a joint stock company for profit, patterned after similar European institutions. Its purpose was "... the study and dissemination of a knowledge of the nature and habits of the creatures of the animal kingdom." According to the first Annual Report, " the object of the Society is to establish a garden which will be a profit to the stockholders, a credit to the city, and a continual source of improvement to its visitors." The nine members of the Society's Board of Directors were prominent citizens, both native-born and German immigrants. Many of them served on the boards of the city’s other cultural institutions.
The Board’s first officers were: Joseph Longworth, President; John Simpkinson, Vice- President; Clemens Oskamp, Treasurer; Charles Phelps Taft, Recording Secretary; and Armin Tenner, Corresponding Secretary. A capitalization of $300,000, consisting of 6,000 shares of $50 each, was authorized. Later Armin Tenner was sent to Germany to try to hire Dr. Alfred Brehm to direct Cincinnati's zoo. Although an offer was apparently made to Brehm, later in September an international business panic or crash struck. Because of this and a recession that followed, the proposed $300,000 of capitalization was scaled back due to a lack of investors. Negotiations with Brehm also evidently ended and no further progress was made on the Zoo for six months.
Andrew Erkenbrecher (1821-1885) was the founder of the Cincinnati Zoo. He was remembered long after for his personal warmth, self-effacing nature, vision, determination, and enthusiastic support for the Zoo. According to an early Board officer, the origin of the Zoo was "chiefly due to the extraordinary labor" of Erkenbrecher. His remarkable efforts and character were undoubtedly instrumental in the establishment of a major zoological garden in Cincinnati, earlier than other comparable American cities with large German populations.
