It was for his wealthy friends and their summer homes primarily. But gradually the land was purchased from, due to this ownership situation, and now Kapi’olani Park is 170-something acres of it, of which for the zoo is 42, is all city and county of home of Honolulu. But he… Read More
Functioning zoo. Functioning zoo that Ben Hollinger is running, and he ultimately leaves the zoo as his administrator. Ben Hollinger, like many politicians, shifted his interest from the zoo. He was very focused on the zoo for many years. He got a lot of money from 1914, up through the… Read More
Right from the get go, I assume, but how did this get to become zoo land?… Read More
Well. And was it good or bad in your opinion as you- Oh, it was good because therein lies a marvelous story. Hawaiian politicians were very similar to politicians all over the world. And in 1877, King Kalakaua decreed Kapi’olani Park is now the people’s park, and Kapi’olani Park was… Read More
Let me back up just a minute here. You said he had the land, the zoo was on the land at- Kapi’olani Park. Read More
How did that occur that he was able to get this prime land, because it did come with a lot of covenants?… Read More
She was five feet, four and a half, maybe five years old. And Joseph, they worked a price out for her. Price was $4,000, they agreed. But of course, Ben Hollinger did not have $4,000. So Ben Hollinger being the promoter he was, he said, “Okay, Mr. Joseph, I’ll accumulate… Read More
Cars were selling for $400 delivered in Honolulu, $400 total. So this elephant for $4,000 was the equivalent of the price of a beach house on Waikiki Beach. It was a lot of money. So he used all his persuasion with both the business people, the newspapers, the school children,… Read More
And this fellow was half (indistinct), half Caucasian, and he had many ties here with the Bronx Zoo, and he brought the first koalas and the first platypus. Platypus died, I think, I believe it never got here, but the koalas did get here and not very long, here being… Read More
For that period of time, it was called a republic, because between the monarchy, when the monarchy was overthrown in ’83, the hope was by the men that overthrew the monarchy, that Hawaii would become a territory immediately, and it didn’t. That was huge amount of political intrigue. Year after… Read More
So the first zoo director essentially was not called zoo director in Honolulu. He was a politician and he happened to have been the same age as I was when he started. He was 24, he was a part Hawaiian, a very forceful, effective person named Ben Hollinger. And in… Read More
It’s on the slopes of Diamond Head Crater on White Key Beach. Essentially, it’s a diamond in the rough. When I moved there or lived, was in the Navy there, the mammals in the zoo, total mammal population was about six domestic goats and about the same number of reeses… Read More
And I’ll go back a minute more. Well, a tiny bit earlier than that. Historically, Hawaii was a actively operative monarchy, Hawaiian islands were until 1893, when then queen, Liliuokalani, was essentially disposed from her… She was urged out, forced out, and many books have been written about this, by… Read More
Oh, sure. I was not only a private citizen, I was only 24-years old, and I’d only lived in Hawaii for a matter of months. I was very green, but I had in the time I’d been there back and forth when our ship went back during the campaigns and… Read More
So this PR lady who was a friend of mine, who I had developed a relationship with her in terms of getting her interested in the idea of let’s do a zoo said, “Okay.” We basically asked her, “Okay, Lorraine, what do we do?… Read More
How do we develop, advance this idea of urging the city, the park department, the park’s board to accept these gift animals as the nucleus of a new zoo?” Now you’re doing this as a private citizen?… Read More
And so the dairy owners were very aware of the liabilities and concern, and there were gassed when they saw carloads of kids climbing out and pulling grass and weeds, and feeding it to the animals, and throwing lighted cigars in at the, now very adult, very large chimpanzees that… Read More
But that way, you, as the new owners moving to this community will look good either way that happens.” So they did offer them to the city and one of the, again, it all goes back, Mark, to people and people and people. And in this campaign, and I think… Read More
So as a consequence, he lived a life of multiple marriages, and he had this interest in zoos. He had a zoo in Santa Barbara, California, well, animal collection, at his property in Santa Barbara. And then in about ’36, he moved to Hawaii as a second home. And he… Read More
And then right in the middle of the war time in ’45, 1945, Chris Holmes committed suicide. So in his will, he had left these animals in this island and they were residing on this island in Kane’ohe Bay. He left these animals to the owner of a dairy, a… Read More