‘Cause the gorilla’s having eclampsia. I don’t know what eclampsia is, a thing females get, all right, when they have babies and stuff. It’s, it can be fatal. And Nick was a gynecologist. And they did an autopsy on the gorilla when it’d pass, and it was eclampsia, something all… Read More
Oh my God, I sat there and just, I damn near started crying. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And then our, even the staff were going crazy. Then the word got out, and then all about 100-and-something thousand people start pouring into the place. Read More
Then what do we have right after that?… Read More
This just shows you what can happen. Twin gorillas, for the first time in the zoological world, were born at the Columbus zoo and survived, by the way. Read More
We opened that thing, I think June 15th of, hold on a minute, be ’81, ’82, I don’t remember. And I’ll tell you something. We had media there, everybody that day. We opened those doors up. ‘Cause I should have practiced beforehand. I know that, but I didn’t. And I… Read More
It couldn’t happen. I opened that door up, Colo comes, and she looks like this. One gorilla go like this, and go back in the building. Not one day, two days, third day. They didn’t come out the first few days. I’m going, I don’t believe this again. I called… Read More
Third day they won’t come up. I did have like one channel there. By God, they got the picture. When one gorilla came out first. As you know, probably more than anybody in this country, then they all came out. It took them about 20 minutes for all of them… Read More
I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. McConnell. “I don’t blame you, this is obviously not a good idea “I’m having on doing the gorilla thing. Just forget it.” “Why, Jack? This is the coolest thing ever happened to me! “Can I have a copy of that picture? This is unbelievable. Read More
The golden rule that I told you. The golden rule, do unto others. It’s how he built his company. It’s a nonunion steel, incredible, all over the world, the company’s grown to. And he taught me many things, but he’s the one took that money. I took that money, Bill… Read More
I go in there and take my own people. I did have to hire a gunnite company, by the way. It was some guys. They do gunnite around here. It wasn’t the fanciest gunnite, but by golly, it covered those block walls. We built a little pool out of there… Read More
And I said, “I just need some help.” I didn’t ask for a dime. He said, “So what do you wanna do?” I said, “I want to take this elephant.” The old elephant habitat, by the way, had kangaroos in it. I said, “I wanna take the elephant yard.” A… Read More
“I know it will ’cause we have “the world’s first gorilla born here.” See I know about Cola. I knew that when I was first starting my business here in the fifties. he said, “Okay, what’s it gonna take?” I said, “I don’t know, might be 75,000.” I just that… Read More
“If he can’t get out, the gorillas can’t get out. “Outstanding idea! I’m gonna come out there tomorrow. “I’m gonna give you $50,000, “come out there tomorrow.” If you saw the picture in my book, he comes out here. He has a hand-written check from him personally, not even with… Read More
Colo was born here in 19, as I said, ’56, right?… Read More
I get here in ’78. The gorillas are in bars, like a lot of places. The gorillas never seen basically good daylight. They had a little outside thing. Never touched grass. Never had a little pool to wade in the water, like some gorillas do. I said to myself, I… Read More
I got to find somebody. That’s when I went to a man named Mr. McConnell. I read about him in the paper, I didn’t even know the guy. Took me six, I don’t know, two or three months to even get in to see the guy. Finally, I kept calling,… Read More
What was your first big development at Columbus Zoo, your first big development?… Read More
All right. The first big development at the Columbus Zoo was really, I would say one of the major turnarounds of the zoo, and that was putting the gorillas outside for the first time in history. Colo, the oldest gorilla in, the oldest gorilla in the world today, in a… Read More
Last night, I spoke to them, I try to do as much as I can. And I thanked them because, “I know you’re thinking, “everybody’s pats you on the back because of you, “we wouldn’t be here. “I can tell you now, everybody, I would not be here. “The zoo… Read More
If they do it the second time, they’re out of here. The docents is just as important to this zoo, as Jack Hanna or anybody else. Okay. Read More