When elephants and buffalo roamed downtown Salt Lake City

                             Elephants at Hoge Zoo in 2008.

SALT Lake City had a number of large loose animal incidents in the early 20th Century and we’re not talking about cougar, deer or moose, but elephants and buffalo.
“Elephant flees from zoo; Captured after a long race; Princess Alice escapes from Park and enjoys brief jaunt in hills” was a Nov. 15, 1916 headline in the Salt Lake Tribune.
The elephant got as far as Parleys Canyon and was adorned with a necklace of barb wire and chicken fence. During her jaunt, she had waded through various fences as though they were weeds. She also overturned some outhouses in her path and went through a barn.
No one was hurt in what the newspaper termed “a lively escapade,” but the elephant was bleeding a few places from the wire fences.
The newspaper stated: “The path of the elephant's
night was lined with astonished gazers, who stood long and looked in the direction in which she had vanished. Small boys followed until they were winded. Automobiles took up the chase and were lost in the network of roads
to the eastward. A considerable crowd was in at the capture.”
This would not be the last time Princess Alice would escape. She broke loose and roamed 700 East Street periodically, putting the community in an uproar. A menagerie of clothing often adorned the pachyderm’s back after she ran through various backyard clothelines in the area. Her jaunts were the main reason Hogle Zoo is located where it is today – further away from downtown.
The elephant’s offspring, “Prince Utah,” also got loose from Liberty Park, as an Aug. 5, 1918 story in the Salt Lake Herald reported.
“Mother hard to comfort until her offspring is brought back,” was part of the Herald’s headline.
A Telegram story from Sept. 25, 1935 reported that Princess Alice didn’t leave the Zoo grounds, but that overnight she had broken her chain and smashed through a steel railing, enjoying “a night out” at Hogle Gardens Zoo.

                                   Buffalo on Antelope Island.

“Buffalo runs wild through S.L. streets; Women and children rush from path of crazed frontier beast” was a Salt Lake Telegram aheadline on July 23, 1931.
The 1,800-pound beast was in town for Pioneer Day, then called “Covered Wagon Days,” got loose after its rope broke at the State Fairgrounds and ended up being captured near the City dump, west of Redwood road. It had snorted furiously and send many people scurrying to safety. Forty cowboys and a squadron of police were involved in the chase. 
Salt Lake City was not the only Utah city with loose animal incidents -- “Gorilla at large” was headline in the Ogden Standard on Sept. 16, 1887. Somehow, a gorilla from a circus at Union Square had gotten loose just after dark and disappeared. Men were searching with torches trying to find the animal at a late hour.
Two days later, on Sept. 18, it was reported in the Standard that the gorilla had eventually been found, happily eating at a bakery on the lower side of town.

(-Note: This was originally published in the Deseret News.)

1936: When Hogle Zoo almost moved back to Liberty Park

                                                     The front to Hogle Zoo today.

SALT Lake City’s Hogle Zoo moved from its original Liberty Park Location to its current mountainside residence near the mouth of Emigration Canyon in 1931. However, less than five years later there was a seldom reported in history effort to move the Zoo back to Liberty Park.

“Plans to move Zoo to Liberty Park Indorsed (sic)” was an April 24, 1936 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper.

The Zoo, then called “Hogle Gardens,” had originally moved because its elephant, Princess Alice, periodically broke free and roamed 700 East Street, putting the community in an uproar. A menagerie of clothing often adorned the pachyderm’s back after she ran through various backyard clothelines in the area.

A petition signed by a large group of S.L. citizens sparked the return to Liberty Park proposal. It not only believed the Park was a more central location for the zoo, but noted that some animals – especially Princess Alice – were homesick for their former home.

Indeed, an April 29, 1936 headline in the Salt Lake Telegram stated, “Princess Alice pining for Liberty Park, says ‘Dutch’ Shider, once her trainer.”

“She isn’t happy at the Gardens,” Shider said, “She pines for Liberty Park.”

                                             An elephant at Hogle Zoo in the late 1980s.

(On Nov. 15, 1931, the three-ton elephant had rebelled and injured a trainer and demolished a wooden trailer that was to move her to the new Zoo site.)

In 1936, there were 93 animals and 133 fowls housed at the zoo. (However, strangely the bears were not moved from Liberty Park and resided there alone for some years.)

Harold B. Lee, Salt Lake Commissioner of Streets and Public Improvements said he wanted to see the zoo in a place where the greatest majority of the people desire it.

The Zoo had resided at Liberty Park for nearly 25 years.

Not mentioned at the time were controversies that happened soon after the move to the mouth of Emigration Canyon. For example, the water supply to the Zoo was cut off in 1934 for failure to pay a $195 bill. The Zoo’s flamboyant superintendent threatened to turn all the animals loose if the water was not turned back on – and service was soon restored.

In addition, some of the original Zoo buildings at its mountainside location were not first class, or well kept.

Yet, the Zoo remained at the Mouth of Emigration Canyon, where it has expanded today to become one of the largest animal collections in the western states.

(Note: This was originally published in the Deseret News.)