We are starting a new feature here on our website. We will be posting featured artifacts from the permanent collection here in our blog, for your curiosity and enjoyment.
Today's artifact is a sculpture. Curator, Jo Wittler, wrote:
Meet Pete, an iron spider made by Paul Anderson from the bars at the top of the bear enclosure (curved inward to prevent the bears from climbing out.) at the Shiras Zoo. The zoo operated from the 30s to the early 90s.
The Shiras Zoo at Presque Isle first began around 1932. By the mid 1950s only a deer pen was filled. Throughout the sixties and seventies it was a tourist destination with animals such as fox, bobcat, bear, otter, peacock, and guinea hens. An albino buck was brought there in 1983 which is the likely ancestor of the albino around Marquette today. Around 1990 there was a change to only keep native animals. In the early nineties, the city explored an expansion of the zoo, but city residents objected to the proposed development of the Island and the small zoo was closed.
Today's artifact is a sculpture. Curator, Jo Wittler, wrote:
Meet Pete, an iron spider made by Paul Anderson from the bars at the top of the bear enclosure (curved inward to prevent the bears from climbing out.) at the Shiras Zoo. The zoo operated from the 30s to the early 90s.
The Shiras Zoo at Presque Isle first began around 1932. By the mid 1950s only a deer pen was filled. Throughout the sixties and seventies it was a tourist destination with animals such as fox, bobcat, bear, otter, peacock, and guinea hens. An albino buck was brought there in 1983 which is the likely ancestor of the albino around Marquette today. Around 1990 there was a change to only keep native animals. In the early nineties, the city explored an expansion of the zoo, but city residents objected to the proposed development of the Island and the small zoo was closed.
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