These photos were labeled "lion house, Chicago, Ill." I don't know if Atlanta ever had a Mayor named Hatsfield or not, but this sure looks like the interior of the old Atlanta Zoo Feline Building. But I will of course, defer to RJR. What do you think, Richard? Is it Atlanta Zoo or Chicago? In the past Atlanta had taken the "Ernst Lang School of bathroom tile exhibits" and ran with it. It was sure a sterile/clean look, but always felt damp/cold and impersonal.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Mayor William B. Hartsfield--Inside Lion House--1959
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Wade G. Burck
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It's the Atlanta Zoo, as opposed to Zoo Atlanta. Richard can now tell you the names of the lions and the keepers.
Atlanta has a "Hartsfield" airport, if that helps. Or maybe it's "Hart's Field," which wouldn't help at all . . .
Bruce the Clown
I don't think there is a zoo in the United States that had such a drastic "makeover" as the Atlanta Zoo, under the Directorship of Dr. Terry Maples. The transformation was incredible. The gorilla exhibit in particular is spectacular. I first toured the Atlanta Zoo in 1974, and hated how Willie B was kept. 12 years later the change was magnificent.
Wade
That is most definitely the Atlanta Zoo and the interior of its newish lion house. It was formally opened on May 4, 1957 and I was one of the first through the doors.
That is Mayor William B. Hartsfield holding the lion cubs. He was Mayor from January 1937 until January 1962 except for a brief period in 1941-42. Our International Airport bears his name along with that of Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first black mayor.
Though the keepers look familiar, I cannot recall their names.
Neither is the colorful and long serving Johnny Dilbeck who was zoo foreman at the time. The zoo was then owned and operated as a part of the City’s Parks Dept.
The photos were taken at the southern or “lion” end of the building. The opposite or northern end was built the same way except it was for tigers. Both the lions and tigers had access to large grassy outdoor moated enclosures.
In between, along the western side was a long row of smaller cages for leopards, jaguars, pumas and smaller cats. Across the public corridor from those cages, on the east side, were some zoo offices. I once visited Johnny Dilbeck there when he had a large cardboard box in which were some zoo bred baby tigers. The leopards, et al had access to small outdoor barred cages.
As for the lions, we produced large numbers of them back in those days. Today, Zoo Atlanta seems to have problems breeding them.
In advance of this and the new (1959) primate building, the architects went all around the country to examine the latest in zoo building design.
The Atlanta lion house was a duplicate of the new one in Philadelphia, except that it was “U” shaped and much larger.
The primate building was modeled on a new one in Milwaukee. It had all glass fronts and there were no outside cages, save one for gibbons. Mayor Hartsfield had visited a zoo with an outdoor pen for gibbons and and was impressed with their brachiation. So, he insisted on the same for Atlanta, except that the outdoor cage was nowhere nearly expansive enough for the gibbons to show their stuff.
Before it was begun, I went to the downtown offices of the zoo architects, Tucker and Howell, and reviewed the plans and drawings for the new primate building.
So, Atlanta was just a reflection of what was then in vogue. And Atlanta’s new buildings garnered much praise for their design, cleanliness and animal care. But, then, what did folks know back then?
In this connection I must point out that in Terry Maple’s much applauded design for “freeing the apes” the interior of the lion house and the old primate house are very much in use today. They serve as the bad weather and after hours keep for the largest populations of lowland gorillas and orangutans in USA. But the public cannot go in there and see that, in fact, those “horrid” old cages are still home to the great apes for more that half their lives, i.e., from the zoo’s daily closing to opening the next morning and all day when the temperature is too low.
Richard,
Half their lives in them is a much better option then all their lives. We sleep in bed, but live when we get out of bed.
Wade
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