Detroit’s first zoo began in 1883 from a bankrupt circus at the site where Tiger Stadium once stood. The Detroit Zoological Society first met in 1911, the Royal Oak site was purchased in 1916, and in 1924 Detroit voters established the Detroit Zoological Park Commission to develop and operate the zoo. A bird house designed by Detroit architect William H. Creaser was completed in 1927, and that year the world’s first captive wolverine birth took place there. The zoo opened to the public on August 1, 1928, with exhibits including an elk yard, bear dens, bird house, lion dens, raccoon and wolverine exhibits, and African veldt, then closed for the winter on December 3 after an estimated one and a half million visitors in four months. During the 1930s, new exhibits, chimpanzee shows, truck gardens to ease Depression food shortages, federally funded construction, a surviving polar bear cub, and major new buildings and landscaping expanded the zoo. Later decades brought the Horace H. Rackham Memorial Fountain, the retirement of the elephant Paulina after 500,000 riders, wartime staffing changes, donated polar bears, a completed animal hospital, the successful raising of an ostrich in a U.S. zoo, the Holden Amphitheater, the Holden Museum of Living Reptiles, regular television broadcasts, the Penguinarium, year-round public opening, admission charges, a free-flight bird house wing, and a docent program. From the late 1970s onward, the zoo added new entrances and habitats, ended chimpanzee shows as animal care philosophy changed, began major conservation work including a program for the last 25 Partula nodosa snails on Earth, hosted a large companion animal adoption event, featured Dinosauria!, reopened and renovated major buildings, returned gorillas, and opened habitats and attractions for river otters, prairie dogs, amphibians, polar bears, kangaroos, wallabies, giraffes, wolves, penguins, and more. In the 2000s and 2010s, it established humane education and animal welfare centers, earned national recognition, closed its elephant habitat on ethical grounds, assumed daily operations and financial management of the Detroit Zoo and Belle Isle Nature Zoo, gained tri-county millage support, helped rescue and care for 27,000 animals in the largest exotic animal confiscation in U.S. history, and continued expanding with new educational, wetland, beaver, wolf, and penguin facilities through 2016.