A giant carrot, a house made of cheese, and barnyard chickens were among the attractions that greeted visitors to the Baltimore Zoo鈥檚 new Children鈥檚 Zoo when it opened in Druid Hill Park in 1963. 鈥淢ost children鈥檚 zoos are full of fairy tale stuff, like Humpty-Dumpty, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk,鈥 declared Arthur Watson, the Zoo鈥檚 director. 鈥淭his one will be different. It will emphasize living things and nature.鈥 And it did, along with its share of whimsy. The Children鈥檚 Zoo was a combination petting zoo, storybook land, and barnyard intended to make every child鈥檚 鈥渇irst introduction to animals a pleasant one,鈥 said Watson. Young visitors could board Noah鈥檚 Ark (formerly a Chesapeake Bay fishing boat), climb into a tree house, ride a miniature train pulled by a replica 1863 C.P. Huntington locomotive, visit cows in a Pennsylvania Dutch milking barn, and wander in, out, and around other fantastical structures with animals everywhere. Chickens, ducks, and peacocks roamed freely while rabbits, sheep, goats, and donkeys stood within petting distance. More exotic fauna such as monkeys, parrots, and a baby tapir were also in residence but out of hand鈥檚 reach. Interest in adding a barnyard feature to Druid Hill Park 鈥渢o give city children a view of country life鈥 had been floating around since 1937 when Baltimore City Councilman Jerome Sloman first proposed the idea. It took twenty-six years, and Watson鈥檚 unrelenting advocacy, to turn idea into reality. From the moment he was hired as the Zoo鈥檚 first professional director in 1948, Watson made it his mission to increase attendance. He believed that a children鈥檚 zoo was central to this mission and he eventually secured the necessary approvals and funding for construction. In the meantime, children鈥檚 zoos had become popular all around the country. Watson and his architect, Louis Cuoma, researched similar attractions to help conceptualize their own. Referring to his competition at other major zoos, Watson announced with typical bravado, 鈥淟et them compare our new [children鈥檚 zoo] with those and they鈥檒l find that Baltimore has the best in the country.鈥 The site for the Children鈥檚 Zoo was carefully chosen to avoid tree removal and to be within walking distance of the main zoo. The milking barn was constructed on site but most of the fantastic structures and over-sized animals were created in the big, bright workshop of Adler Display Studios on Penn Street in southwest Baltimore. The zoo-within-a-zoo was enclosed to contain free-roaming children and animals, but also to allow the zoo to charge admission of fifteen cents for each child and twenty-five cents for adults. Watson rightly anticipated that ticket sales would soon cover the $250,000 cost of building the Children鈥檚 Zoo. While seemingly modest, the price of admission for a family could add up at a time when the hourly minimum wage was only $1.25. The rest of the Zoo remained free but the Children鈥檚 Zoo鈥檚 pay-to-play policy sparked debate in the City鈥檚 op-ed pages. Some felt that the policy was exclusionary while others saw a need for the Zoo to generate revenue in order to grow and improve. Curiosity apparently outpaced criticism, with more than twenty-five thousand people visiting the Children鈥檚 Zoo in its first ten days. It would continue to attract the Zoo鈥檚 youngest visitors for just over two decades, until it was replaced in the 1980s by the expansive Maryland Wilderness exhibit, an ambitious new children鈥檚 zoo with a very different look and feel.
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