St. Louis was founded by fur trappers, early fur trappers and hunters. And so there were a lotta baby animals who were brought in from the trappers and kept. Baby bears. There were bears. There were wolves, there were coyotes, foxes, skunks in many of the city parks including Forest Park. But it wasn’t until 1904, there was a Louisiana Purchase Exposition which is the World’s Fair. It was established in the city of St. Louis. And the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC as their contribution to the fair, they built the flight cage and it was put together with bolts and washers so that after the fair, it was gonna be dismantled and shipped by railroad to National Zoo in Washington, DC for the first-ever walkthrough flight cage for what was gonna be then the National Zoo in 1904. But after the World’s Fair, the people of St. Louis rallied and persuaded the federal government to sell the cage and they bought the cage for $3,500.
