Random Toledo Zoo Stories!

Art info: Title: "Babe", Walbridge Park elephant, Toledo, Ohio. Click image for more information

There is a zoo that means a lot to me. It is a zoo I grew up going to because I lived nearby. It's the zoo that made me fall in love with zoos. It is located in a state where the very first car accident occurred in 1891. It is the city that John Denver made a song about. The glass city, Toledo, Ohio! Yes, I am an Ohioan, and of course, the stories are 100% true.... Only in Ohio... Only in Ohio. I saw a cat chasing a dog! Anyway, yes, the zoo I'm talking about is, of course, The Toledo Zoo. I've been going there since I was just a little kid, having lived my entire life near there. So, of course, with my love of history, animals, and zoos, I figured I'd make this post aboutsome brief history of The Toledo Zoo. Wallbridge park that was established in 1871 that evolved into a amusement park featuring swimming merry go-round's, roller coasters and more, unfortunately not an amusement park anymore but back then across the street from there was a beautiful park with trees and a green house and even a fountain that people loved going to after the amusement park, It was more beautiful than the time I realized the spitting cobra was mothers natures shotgun. I'm not too sure about this because I've never seen one spit, but I'd like to think instead of going boom, you just hear them pull up a loogie and spit. But this park is what will eventually turn into the Toledo Zoo!

The very first animal was donated by a man named Carl Hillebrand, and that animal, of course, was a woodchuck! How much furniture could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck furniture? Well, that saying right there is the reason Carl donated the woodchuck was because he was a furniture dealer, and that little rascal was eating on the furniture. I can only imagine making him more frustrated than I would think someone would be falling while going up an escalator, you just fall forever! However, even though the little rascal was destroying the furniture, Carl was a really nice guy and didn't wanna kill the woodchuck and decided instead to donate the woodchuck to the Wallbridge park with the idea of starting a zoo. I'm guessing it was a mega chonk of a woodchuck, just looking at trees yelling "Get in my belly!" Because some people thought this woodchuck was actually a bear, the rumor spread like wildfire! But it did the new zoo a favor because people got more excited than a python at Chuck E Cheese, the place then got packed just to see this woodchuck! I can only imagine people going up to see this woodchuck after hearing the rumor, saying to their wife, "Great googly moogly, Barbara, I think that bear needs a dentist!"

People then started doing the same as Carl and started donating. And by the end of 1900, there would be around 39 animals, and T.J. Ziems was the very first official zoo keeper! That's an extremely impressive first! I tried to do something first once.. Me and my brother as children decided we'd be the first people to make a roller coaster in a home! We took my dad's racecar tire he had as a collector, climbed in it, and rolled ourselves down the stairs with it. We ended up being the first people in our town to almost break our pelvis by rolling ourselves down the stairs with a tire! Yeah, not as impressive.. actually mine's pretty stupid but still. Back to history!

The next section of history I wanted to talk about is very important to me because of my own childhood memories. Because in 2003, back when I was in preschool, a baby elephant was born in The Toledo Zoo, and that baby elephant was named Louie! And Louie was a huge deal around me! There was a book made, and 13 ABC made a DVD too! I actually have that DVD with the original coupons that were printed out inside, that was good for 10% off snacks, a Free Admission, and a 10% discount on the shop!

Baby Louie became such a big deal when I was in preschool; they had us do a little play for our families, singing a song about Baby Louie that they made. I know what you're thinking, you're wondering if I was any good at singing... I don't mean to brag, but I could bring people to tears with my singing voice... Not because I was good, it's because they were begging for me to stop. Look, I don't really remember a lot about that. I was only around 4 years old, but this is what my brain thinks about this play. My voice didn't get deep yet, and when I reached the high notes in the song, they thought I was lip syncing... Until the dog outside started howling, and a window broke. Okay, I'm only joking, but what was really cool about Baby Louie that lets me transition into the next historical subject about the Toledo Zoo is that Baby Louie was named after a man named Louis Scherer.

It was a time when, sadly, animals were seen as nothing more than just entertainment, some that had no business doing so, people would hook them up to slays, and even ride them, not realizing how it could sadly impact the animal's life. However, the man Louis Scherer came onto the scene, and it became clear that he cared a lot about those animals and didn't just see them as toys. Louis was so kind to the animals that he was the only person in many moments who could calm down an Elephant named Babe.

Babe was Toledo Zoo's very first elephant, arriving at the zoo in 1912, coming from Missouri. Babe had a past, though, and actually killed his prior circus keeper. However, Toledo still wanted him and pooled money donating to the Toledo Zoo, and any kid who donated a quarter or more would receive a certificate that they could eventually bring back when Babe sadly passed away and traded it in for... wait... Okay, I had to make sure I read that right... I guess they could have traded it in for one pound of elephant flesh.... It's just skin, Steven!

However, this didn't deter Babe from doing things. He was still the most dangerous animal in the zoo, killing another keeper after arriving. However, Louis was so good with him that he was able to, once a year, walk him down a street called Broadway to take him to an industrial scale and weigh him without trouble. But a stinker always a stinker because at the time Babe would be kept on a chain when not with Louis, and Babe would still break loose to take walks around town. Even one time, going up to a second-story house while a couple were sleeping and sticking his trunk inside looking through the window, scaring the heck out of the couple. I can only imagine Babe thinking it was a funny prank to just stare in the window like a creep, licking his lips, whispering, "You look more yummy than a rice soil grass sandwich in the hot sun!"

abe sadly did eventually pass away, though, in 1943. And no, no one cashed in those certificates, because when he passed away, World War 2 was in swing, so instead of becoming a collector's item, his pelt was used for ammunition to aid in the city’s war efforts.

With the size of elephants, I know it's not true, but I just can't help but imagine those bullets being gigantic, like so big it made Texas jealous! I can just imagine Texas saying, "Oh ya'll ain't about to beat us man! We'll make ours out of Kyle Busch! Those bullets won't go boom, they'll go Boogity, Boogity, Boogity!"

Jokes aside The Toledo Zoo is a really awesome place and grew extremely from where it once started just being a park with a woodchuck to becoming a zoo that helped its community during great depression by utilizing the work programs to build some buildings giving people work, to becoming the first zoo to film an underwater birth of a hippopotamus, because it was the first zoo to have underwater viewing of a hippo, to now being one of most well respected zoos in Ohio, and if you're in the Toledo Area and have free time I urge you it's worth the visit.

Thanks for reading.

-Wolfy

If you wanna read more blogs like this, maybe share it with your friends, and maybe if enough people tell me on Facebook, I might have to do another part 2 when it comes to the Toledo Zoo. Either way, I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you all have an amazing day.