9 April 2011
The Oklahoma City Zoo opens its museum today.
The Patricia and Byron J. Gambulos ZooZeum is free for zoo visitors and will be open during regular zoo hours, which are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The museum is within the new elephant habitat.
The rotating exhibits, photos, artifacts and videos encompass zoo history both old and new, said Amy Stephens, museum manager and a senior naturalist educator.
The $650,000 project was funded by donations and sales tax.
The museum includes tributes to Matilda the Hippo, Carmichael the Polar Bear, Heiner Ord the Bear and elephants Judy and Luna. A replica of Monkey Island has a crank that swings monkeys around the ship’s mast.
The zoo bought a few leftover mannequins from a Hollywood fashion exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Now the dummies are modeling different kinds of clothes.
“Liza Minnelli’s wearing an Ostrich Egg Breakfast shirt,” she said. “Gladiator — Russell Crowe — is wearing a pink one.”
The museum project started about a decade ago. Stephens began writing her book, “Oklahoma City Zoo: 1902-1959,” and the zoo was preparing for its centennial celebration.
“That’s when I realized we were forgetting a lot,” she said. “We’ve missed out on a lot.”
While she was collecting information, Stephens began collecting things, too. She has about 6,000 artifacts. Her collection includes bars from the old bear cages, veterinarian equipment and an X-ray of a snake.
“It’s not just old, dusty things,” she said. “It’s something museums have to battle all the time — that perception.”
When artifacts aren’t on display, they’re kept in a humid, dark storage archive room. Stephens said the zoo museum is run like any other museum.
“We’re taking care of people’s memories,” she said.
The museum is in a remodeled Works Projects Administration building built in 1935. The brick building has lived three lives before becoming the museum, Stephens said. It was a bathhouse, a train barn and a storage building for Haunt the Zoo decorations.
