As our National Zoos and Aquariums are celebrated this month, Osceola History wants to honor the long history of the Kissimmee Zoo. Whether captured in picture postcards or promotional maps of the area, a unique lakefront zoo was once located on the shores of Lake Tohopekaliga, just blocks from historic downtown Kissimmee. A municipal menagerie located between Stewart and Ruby Avenue hosted kids and adults from all around Central Florida and beyond. Equipped with picnic tables, launching ramps, and 2 piers for fishing, Kissimmee Zoo was very popular and fondly remembered.
Plans for a zoo began in the 1920s, when the first animals began arriving at the zoo in 1926. A major zoo census in 1933 recorded 123 animals, 52 birds, and 21 reptiles. From the day it started, this Lakefront Zoo captured the imaginations of all ages. Into the 1950s, local papers like the Kissimmee Gazette and Orlando Sentinel reported on school visits and newsworthy happenings at the animal park. As described by a colleague who spent his formative years here, “on my first trip from Merritt Island, (his) sister was a victim of the infamous spitting monkey. It got her, but not me”.
The Kissimmee Zoo continued to expand in 1953, when it was given 11 new animals by an Orlando man, Mr. Sidney P. Newell. He was the director of the Humane Society in Orlando and was equipped with taming any wild animals he acquired (what a gift!). According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel, Newell had started his collection five years prior, “when a friend presented him with a Rhenus monkey”. It is evident that the zoo was enjoyed by the homefolks, but it was an incredibly big hit with tourists also. Newell was quoted as saying,
“Think what fun kids and grown-ups have watching and feeding the animals.”
The zoo once boasted a whopping 125,000 visitors in a single year, and uniquely, the state referred to it as the “children’s zoo” because it contained so many smaller animals that appealed to young guests. There was no admission charge to the zoo, but a donation box was built by decision of the recreation board. The city also maintained a large garden on the lakefront, which supplied much of the vegetables for the animals and the betterment of their diet. Despite all the good memories and valiant efforts of community groups to save the zoo, it began to fall into disrepair in the late 1960s, and by 1970, “City Commissioners agreed to close the decrepit zoo and sell most of the animals”.
But the image of the Lakefront Menagerie and its wild attractions lives on in local stories, and next time you visit grandma or grandpa, ask if they can tell you tales of the epic animal park on the glistening shores of Lake Tohopekaliga.
