The Chicago Zoological Society Year Book 1927

An early plan of Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo.

“By June 30, 1934, when the Brookfield Zoo officially opened, local residents had been working to build it for almost 15 years. In 1919, Edith Rockefeller McCormick gave 83 acres of land to the Forest Preserve District of Cook County for a large modern zoo, and the district responded by adding another 98 acres. In 1920, a group of prominent Chicagoans joined to make the zoo a reality and, in 1921, incorporated the Chicago Zoological Society. The following year, building began and George Frederick Morse, Jr., was hired as the society’s first manager. Not until 1926, after county residents approved a zoo tax, did serious construction begin, only to falter in the Great Depression.” – Encyclopedia of Chicago.

This yearbook of the Chicago Zoological Society was published locally by The Faithorn Company in 1927. Its 107 pages overview the failures and successes experienced by the organization during its first six years of existence trying to build and organize what would eventually become the Brookfield Zoo. Details on membership, ongoing construction efforts, transportation, planned exhibits, zoo history, and the board of directors are all included.

To the back cover is bound a large folding map designed by the architecture firm of Edwin H. Clark, Inc. It provides a crystal clear representation of the proposed grounds that is surprisingly faithful to what was ultimately built. Apart from a few other updates, the Duck Pond noted in the front would eventually be transformed into the zoo’s iconic Monkey Island. Sixty different features, including exhibits, visitor amenities, and support infrastructure, are numbered within the image and labeled on the right side.

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