Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/32575
Tessie with Penrose, center, and Willam Thayer Tutt, right. not a zoologist.” Mrs. Calder recalls how much Penrose loved the zoo, even riding the carousel with the children who visited. He did, in fact, manage the zoo himself until he died in 1939. Then, Menary became the zoo’s first official director. Longtime residents and visitors to the Pikes Peak region will recall the zoo’s long-lived giant gorilla, Zulu. Mrs. Calder tells the story of his acquisition. Zulu was just a 19-pound baby when he first arrived, fetched by limou- sine from the Denver airport. He spent his first night in Colorado Springs in Menary’s guest room. The next morn- ing, Menary played with the baby primate in his kitchen, rolling a ball back and forth on the floor. They also remember how the first giraffes arrived at the zoo: on a steamship across the ocean, then by train and finally by truck from the train station. “They had to hire a special crew of guys to go ahead of the convoy and lift the power lines with poles so they could get the giraffes under them,” Calder recalls. Menary knew every animal at the 40 The Broadmoor Magazine | 2011 • 2012 zoo by name, and they knew him, too. “My father used to put his hand inside the [big cat] cages and scratch them,” Calder says. “It scared me.” After the zoo became a nonprofit organization, arranged just prior to Penrose’s death, it continued to receive support from the hotel and grew almost every year. As time passed, there was a train— the Mountaineer—that hauled pas- sengers from the hotel to the zoo and back. It was a miniature of the Manitou & Pikes Peak Railway, which Penrose also owned. The zoo train was finally discontinued in the 1970s. The bison pens at the base of the mountain eventually gave way to high- end residential development. But the zoo still thrives, and grows, and is still famous as America’s only mountain zoo. Presently, the zoo grounds total 145 acres. It harbors more than 800 ani- mals, including 30 endangered species, and gets more than half a million visitors each year. Admission is no longer 15 cents, but it’s worth every penny. All thanks to Spencer Penrose, a quix- otic man with a passion for exotic animals. THE MISSING EMPRESS TESSIE THE ELEPHANT ARRIVED IN COLORADO SPRINGS APRIL 26, 1926 AFTER A TRAIN JOURNEY OF SIX DAYS FROM FRENCH LICK, INDIANA. THOUGH SPENCER PENROSE ALWAYS SAID THAT SHE WAS A GIFT FROM THE RAJA OF NAGAPUR, INDIA, HE ACTUAL GOT THE ELEPHANT FROM A FRIEND IN THE CIRCUS. TESSIE PASSED AWAY IN FEBRUARY 1936. THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ON HER DEATH STATES THAT SHE WAS TO BE MOUNTED BY A LOCAL TAXIDERMY COMPANY. THE TASK WOULD TAKE ABOUT ONE YEAR AND THEN SHE WAS TO BE ON DISPLAY AT CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN ZOO. HOWEVER, THE COST WAS SO PROHIBITIVE THAT PENROSE REPORTEDLY CHANGED HIS MIND. IN THE END, NOBODY KNOWS WHAT BECAME OF TESSIE THE ELEPHANT. IT REMAINS ANOTHER MYSTERY OF THE BROADMOOR