THE MAMMAL HOUSE COMPRISED MOST OF THE U-M ZOO. DESPITE THE NAME IT HOUSED REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS — AND A WOLVERINE NAMED BIFF. (PHOTO COURTESY U-M BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY.)
It’s a zoo in here
In the summer of 1929, at the corner of Geddes and North University, workmen marked off a space behind the new Exhibit Museum (now the Alexander G. Ruthven Museums Building) and erected a neat brick hexagon with a shingled roof and a cupola.
As soon as a concrete-and-wire fence around the structure was securely in place, zoologists ushered in the first tenants, all Michigan natives — one badger, one red fox, six raccoons, two porcupines, four skunks, and two black bears.
By the following spring an adjoining unit was ready to house nine species of Michigan turtles (including the musk, Blanding, soft shell, box and snapper) and seven species of Michigan snakes, among them the garter, fox, water, hog-nose and blue racer. (The Eastern Massasauga rattler, the state’s only venomous snake, was not invited.)
This was the first and last University of Michigan zoo.
Mapquest
THIS 1936 MAP, CREATED BY STUDENTS, MARKS THE SITE OF THE ZOO BEHIND THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM (TOP RIGHT CORNER). (IMAGE COURTESY U-M BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY.)
Funds for the zoo came from an anonymous benefactor in Detroit. From the scientific point of view, it was thought to be a good idea to display living Michigan animals to the public. And it was especially nice for the children staying in the South Department of University Hospital (the building now called North Hall, headquarters of ROTC), which was next door, to come over and visit the animals.
The installation went by various official names — the “Animal House” and the “Mammal House” (which obviously didn’t give the reptiles and amphibians their due), but around town it was generally known simply as “the zoo.” It was an immediate and continuing hit.
“While it was impracticable to attempt the recording of attendance,” the director of the Museum of Zoology reported in 1930, “occasional checks for one day showed that hundreds of children and adults were coming … Perhaps the pleasure which the crippled children from the University Hospital have taken before the bear cage alone justifies the effort and expense.”
Over time, other animals joined the crew, including coyotes, a pair of opossums, a couple of otters and a wolverine (a species not native to the state) named Biff who had been displayed at Michigan Stadium in a memorably terrible attempt to give U-M a live mascot.
Field tripping
By the standards of modern zookeeping it was apparently not a very nice place for animals to live. The quarters were cramped and artificial, with little to remind the animals of their natural habitats.
AFTER FIELDING YOST’S EXPERIMENT WITH LIVE WOLVERINE MASCOTS FAILED (THE ANIMALS WERE TOO VICIOUS TO BE HANDLED), BIFF THE WOLVERINE BECAME A RESIDENT OF THE ZOO. (PHOTO COURTESY U-M BENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARY.)
But they gave pleasure to human visitors for more than 30 years. In 2006, the Ann Arbor writer Mike Gould published a memoir in The Ann Arbor Observer about visiting the zoo as a baby-boomer kid of the 1950s and ’60s. On Saturday afternoons, he and his brother, walking to campus on Geddes, made a habit of stopping at the zoo on their way to monster-movie matinees at the State or the Michigan. Gould wrote,
“In my later years at Angell Elementary School, a buddy of mine and I got in the habit of visiting the zoo after school. We would go on Fridays because we had learned that was one of the times they fed the animals. We somehow fast-talked our way into the confidences of the grad student who was dispensing the feed, and he allowed us to accompany him on his rounds.
This was pretty cool for a couple of elementary school kids; we got to see the secret sacred back areas of the zoo (and the museum), and got to throw dead mice to the resident predators. I was a budding naturalist at the time, deep into catching frogs and snakes. The museum and its zoo were, for a time, my main places to hang out.”
In 1962 it was decided that the zoo had to go. The space was needed for a $1-million addition to the museum, a research center for the study of animal biosystematics. News of the zoo’s demise was published all over the country, bringing offers of new homes for the remaining animals. Professor Ervin Reimann, director of the museum, accepted an invitation from the little zoo in Grayling, Mich. So the last residents of the University of Michigan zoo — one skunk, five raccoons, two foxes and two black bears — were able to live out their spans on home ground.
Sources and photographs are in the collections of the Bentley Historical Library.
Do you remember the U-M zoo? Tell us your stories in the comments section.
Irwin Starr - '61 & '63
while still adorning it my freshman and sophomore year I used to enjoy stopping at the zoo and chatting with the otters I walk both up to the Hill and back from the Hill on a Saturday night date.
I also spent some time as a docent at the exhibit Museum and remember the zoo fondly.
I also sadly remember visiting the Exhibit Museum 20 some years later and finding my friendly little otters stuffed and in their showcase on the second or third floor.
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Linda Matz - SPH 1975
I grew up across Washtenaw from the zoo – in fact my grandmother\’s house where we lived is still there. We played on the grounds and in fact I have movies of my family there on one Sunday. This brought back fond memories.
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Lori Gould
Mike Gould wrote that story for the Observer. He is my brother. But thanks for using him for your article.
We have corrected the error. –Editor
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Woody Kellum - 1981
My dad worked in the Museum. Since I went to school at the old University Elementary, we visited regularly. I remember seeing a bear and the wolverine, and never being able to spot much of anything in the amphibian cage. I also remember that escaped mice intended for the snakes were a problem in the museum.
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Cindy Quine
I moved to A2 in 1960 as a youngster and remember well, my parents taking me to this zoo.
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Barbara Mackey - 62, 65
As both an Ann Arbor resident and a U of M grad, I have fond memories of the zoo. My mother would periodically take me to the Natural History Museum and the zoo from the time I was a tiny child. I enjoyed seeing the animals, of course, but if the University did not have the money to improve the animals’ habitats, it’s good it was closed. I remember the animals’ cages as being small, dirty, and smelly. Even as a small child I felt sorry for the animals who couldn’t get out an run on the grass, as I could.
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Jan Austin - 1973
I grew up in Ann Arbor (Angell Elementary & University High School) and my dad took us to this zoo many many times before it closed. I still think of it every time I pass its former location. I always felt sad for the animals because their accommodations were so stark, but I loved going to see them.
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Cynthia Stone - 1977
I remember going to see the animals when I was a child growing up in Ann Arbor. I always wondered what happened to the animals.
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Bill Dickens - 1964
Always felt that the Zoo was a pathetic way to treat the animals.
Once in Milt Cohen’s drawing class I did an ink and japanese brush drawing of the bear and gave it to the young lady that I was in love with.
Actually It was a very good drawing and I wish that I had a copy of it.
She probably threw it away.
Bill
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Wystan Stevens - 1970
The U-M Museum director’s first name was Irving, not Ervin. Here is the reptile pit, which was even more boring than the stinky mammal building: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/hathsomephotos/5635877490/>
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Norman Kohns - 1966
I had not to my recollection ever heard of the zoo. Since I came to U of M in the fall of 1960 as a freshman, I was surprised to learn that it was not closed until 1962.
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Scott Royce - 1939
I was an Aero engineering student from ’35 to ’39. I never knew that the university had a zoo.
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James Mercier - 2003
Whoa – the wolverine is not native to the state? You’re opening a can of worms with that little parenthetical.
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Betty Anne Stone - 1954
Wow, this is my second comment about this issue of Michigan Today. But, how on earth did I, and everyone I knew, spend four years in Ann Arbor and never realize there was a University Zoo? My major was Advertising Design in Art School (actually Architecture and Design in those days) and we really could have done project to get the word out about the Zoo!
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