Do You Know This Place?
Answers: 1. b) Pueblo; 2. d) 1933-1940; 3. c) bear pits in a zoo Located in the southwest corner of Pueblo’s City Park are an assortment of buildings and structures constructed during the Great Depression through the efforts of three New Deal agencies—the Public Works Administration (PWA), Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Work Progress Administration (WPA). Workers used native red sandstone quarried 25 miles west of Pueblo (under another WPA project) to construct two buildings and six structures. The Tropical Bird House, north of the Bear Pits, was the first building to be built at the zoo, followed by the Monkey Mountain, Monkey Moat, and four Bear Pits. The Animal House, containing sculptures done by WPA artists, marked the end of construction. To achieve a rustic look, workers left the sandstone in an uncut, natural state creating dramatic stone walls with no specific design or pattern. The WPA encouraged spending funds on labor not on materials. Early in the 20th century, the scientific age combined with the expanding parks and recreation movement to help spread zoos across the country. Municipal governments restructured parks to include ball fields, playgrounds, museums and zoos. In 1920, city commissioners proposed the consolidation of the city’s three local parks that housed a variety of animals to thirty acres in City Park which had been allocated for a zoological garden in the early 1900s. By 1924, most of the city’s animals had been moved to City Park and were housed in large pens and cages. However, it was not until the Great Depression and resulting federal work relief programs that the Pueblo City Park Zoo saw significant changes and improvements. The mountain, moat and bear pits demonstrate the growing trend toward naturalistic zoos. Carl Hagenback, a German zoo pioneer, introduced the idea of placing animals in more natural settings in the early 1900s. He advocated the use of moats, artificial mountains and pits instead of barred cages. Despite limited funding and the use of much unskilled labor, these structures were considered state of the art at that time, although the now unused Bear Pits are considered unacceptable for animals by today’s standards. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the Pueblo City Park Zoo received several State Historical Fund Grants that assisted in the preparation of the nomination and a preservation master plan, as well as the restoration of several structures. |
