Kalamazoo’s Old Zoo Had Some Wild Escape Stories

Imagine a time when Kalamazoo had its own zoo, complete with cheeky monkeys and majestic peacocks. What happened to those days of adventure?

Kalamazoo's Milham Park Zoo was home to all sorts of animals, but it also had its fair share of escape artists. Let’s revisit those wild stories.

I'm sure that I'm not the only person who finds it strange that a city called Kalamazoo doesn't currently have a zoo. However, there was once a popular zoo here for 50 years.

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Back in 1910, Kalamazoo bought land from the John Milham estate and turned it into what we now know as Milham Park. Fast forward to 1927, the city snagged even more land nearby and opened the Milham Park Zoo. Honestly, it feels like a massive missed opportunity not to call it the “Kalama-Zoo,” right? According to the Kalamazoo Library,  Kalamazoo Library website, generous donors even helped stock the zoo by providing animals.

The Joseph P. Westnedge Post, American Legion, voted to acquire two buffalo for the park. These were added to the small menagerie of peacocks, foxes, owls, swans, monkeys, raccoons, rabbits and black bears that were kept on the property.

There are no clear answers, only speculation as to why the zoo shut down in the mid to late 1970s.  Some may think it has something to do with those dang clever monkeys.  A Kalamazoo County genealogy and local history website says the monkeys escaped on at least two occasions,

In 1939 several African monkeys were donated to the park zoo.  One immediately escaped to the delight of writers at the Kalamazoo Gazette who wrote stories with titles such as "Escaped Monkey Haughty After Capture."  Monkeys escaped again in 1970 resulting in similar titles, "Monkeys Flee Zoo."

We don't know for sure if the zoo closure had anything to do with escaping monkeys or operational costs.  We don't even have a clear answer on when the zoo was closed.  Some sources say the zoo closed in 1974, while others say 1977.

Sure, we don't have a zoo in Kalamazoo, but we're not far from Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek and the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids.

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