1916: When Ogden, Utah had big plans for its own zoo

              An elephant at Salt Lake's Hogle Zoo in the late 1980s.


TODAY about the only zoos in Utah are in Salt Lake City and Logan.
The largest zoo of all and by far is Salt Lake's Hogle Zoo.
Logan boasts a much more moderate-sized Willow Park Zoo on its west side.
However, Ogden City had plans and hopes for its own zoo back in the late 1910s.
According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner of Oct. 12, 1916, Weber County Commissioners had hoped to have a small zoo going by 1919 in Glenwood Park.
Unlike Salt Lake, the Ogden zoo would have had more domesticated wild animals housed there, "to the extent they will not be a danger to have about," the story stated.
Bears, guinea pigs, rabbits, pigeons and other birds would have begun the initial collection of animals.
As far as can be determined, this original Ogden zoo plan was never implemented.
--Ogden DID HAVE a small zoo in the 1950s inside Lorin Farr Park. There were at the least some monkeys there, but that was gone by the 1960s and since then Ogden has lacked any kind of a zoo.


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