And he employed this fellow, E.H. Lewis who had been a gamekeeper according to the accounts, and I’m suspicious of those accounts, that his lineage was supposed to have been a long line of British professional gamekeepers, to build, in 1928, The Catalina Bird Park. So Mr. Lewis went back… Read More
And four days later, the inevitable, he was walking her, and she did what every elephant person has learned or will learn, for the reasons that the newspapers indicated were inexplicable, unexpected, she hit him with her trunk when he was leading her. She then kneeled on him, impaled him… Read More
The man that owned the Colorado Springs of the Broadmore Hotel and Colorado Springs had a winter home in Hawaii, man named Spencer Penrose. Spencer Penrose was persuaded to take a grizzly bear back on a Matson passenger vessel. The only time I’ve ever heard that we’ve ever been able… Read More
And we have a wonderful clipping and a picture of her with Daisy, with this enormous elephant and this half-Hawaiian kid. It was really a poignant thing. So finally, to make this long saga short, I think it probably could be repeated elsewhere in the nation, but the long and… Read More
So there was again, the campaign to get money for Daisy, and this time to build her a proper place. So the Save Daisy Campaign was alerted, was established. Her execution was delayed. And in a short two-week time, they re-employed her former keeper, this guy named George Conrad. So… Read More
Ben Hollinger had hired a teamster, a person that knew horses to take care of the elephant when she was young. He did well with her, a guy named George Conrad. He would be out of office when new mayors would come in, that political spoiled system that Chicago and… Read More
And the classic results occurred, that one that knows elephants could expect, that she became more and more unmanageable by the keepers. New keepers would come, they’d be afraid of her, and she would swat them. And once the keepers are with their temporary job are swatted a couple of… Read More
He actually, the most violent evidence we have of his behavior is when, in Honolulu City Hall, he got a fist fight on the grounds of City Hall with the then mayor, and they had to be separated. They physically were attacking each other. He was that volatile and explosive… Read More
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