Then and Now: Potter Park Zoo through the years

LANSING — Potter Park Zoo has been a part of the Greater Lansing community for more than a century and it has changed with the city and its patrons.

A regional destination since the start, the zoo is always striving to maintain and grow a fanbase that gets to enjoy animals and the outdoors whenever visiting the Pennsylvania Avenue landmark.

The zoo draws about 180,000 visitors a year and has around 350 animals, including a critically endangered Amur tiger named Timmy, critically endangered black rhinos, African lions, a reptile house, penguins and much more.

These days, the zoo has started a major asphalt project that will involve fixing sidewalks and pathways through spring 2024.

Some animals will be going off exhibit during construction, starting with the arctic fox, river otters, farmyard animals and red panda exhibit. But there's still plenty to see. For a full list of animals off exhibit during the paving project, visit here.

The zoo also is looking at a major expansion of its veterinary clinic, with $2 million funding from the state budget. For now, Potter Park's veterinary exam room is so small that staff have to crawl under the exam table when examining a sedated tiger.

How it's the same

The park still hosts picnics and remains a place to relax on the weekends with a chance of some wildlife nudging up to you.

The oldest surviving structure at the zoo is the 1921 building often known as the dog house or Keepers' Lounge. Among the first animals there were four young wolves, followed by dingoes, African hunting dog and a talking parrot.

Still standing, the building shows the zoo's "commitment to providing exceptional accommodations for its animal residents," said Amy Morris-Hall, director of the Potter Park Zoological Society.

For at least some time, since around 1936, the building was a shelter for the Ingham County Humane Society and people could buy dogs at the zoo.

Zoo officials, who looked at the history of the building in 2020, could not determine how long it was used as an animal shelter or whether zoo animals were kept alongside shelter animals.

One of the early animals donated to the zoo was an injured crow, believed to have hit something while flying. Potter Park has now decorated many of its windows with stickers to help prevent birds from smacking into windows.

How it's different

The people who came to Potter Park when it opened may not have thought too much about zoo animals. The park was a place to picnic, play and enjoy the river.

Land was donated by James W. and Sarah Potter starting in 1913, and the donated property would grow into a zoo by the end of the decade.

The "zoo" in Potter Park Zoo began with a handful of elk and then a bear and a "lively young alligator," according to a 1918 State Journal article.

The city forester and acting zookeeper, H. Lee "Pete" Bancroft, asked Lansing area children to bring him animals like any spare giraffes or elephants, according to State Journal accounts of the early zoo days.

A second alligator - with three legs - was added and they wintered in the basement of city hall, according to a State Journal article in 1919. Potter Park Zoo officially became a zoo in 1920.

Today, Potter Park Zoo is an accredited zoo with more than 350 animals.

Fun fact

Elephants have made an outsized contribution to the relatively small Potter Park Zoo, even though they are no longer at the zoo.

In the 1970s, Lansing area schoolchildren pooled together $6,000 to buy a baby elephant. She was named Bingo, a nod to Bingham Elementary School, which outraised the others. The State Journal kicked in $3,000.

Bingo was sometimes given free range of the zoo on evenings and mornings when the crowds weren't too thick.

Bingo was a bit adventurous and would eat hats, locks and rocks.

A baseball-sized rock surgically was removed in 1979 and may have doomed Bingo, who died months later after being unable to eat.

A replacement elephant arrived only a few months later, named Tombi.

Potter Park Zoo began pursuing accreditation by the mid-1980s and that required more space for elephants so Tombi was sent to the larger Indianapolis Zoo. Decades later, Tombi is a celebrated survivor in that zoo's herd.

You won't catch an elephant wandering around the zoo or the park anymore but there are a handful of free-range animals including squirrels, groundhogs and peacocks.

"Only the peacocks belong to the zoo," said Morris-Hall.

Contact Mike Ellis at ellism@lsj.com or 517-267-0415

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Then and Now: Potter Park Zoo through the years