MIDLAND, Texas — Zoos. They’re a great summer destination to take the kids.
It’s a place like no other; you get to interact with unique animals that you might’ve never seen before.
Unfortunately, if you’re a West Texan, the closest zoo is about two and a half hours away, all the way in Abilene.
But what if I told you there was once a zoo in Midland a long time ago?
Well chances are if you’ve been in Midland for a while, you remember.
The Cole Park Zoo started in June of 1956, practically on accident.
According to the MRT, a McCamey rancher donated a pet deer to the City of Midland. Cole Park was selected automatically as a zoo site because it had a resident caretaker, large trees for shade, restrooms and parking.
The rest is history, as the zoo grew to more than 200 animals. This included prairie dogs, birds, buffalo, longhorns, even bears.
If you liked animals, this zoo was for you.
And if you were a teenager looking for a job at the time, chances are if you have a chance to work at a zoo, you’re gonna take it.
“I was the first female zookeeper hired at the Cole Park Zoo when I was 16,” Former zookeeper Cathy Cannon said. “So, 1972 [...] I started out just as the regular zookeeper: taking care of the animals, washing the cages, helping to feed. It was just a great place to be and a great place to work.”
Safe to say, being a zookeeper wasn’t like most jobs at 16.
“I remember the first time my mom came out to see me at work at the zoo,” Cannon said. “It was my day to clean the snake pit. And needless to say, she about had a heart attack when she saw me down in the pit with the rattlesnakes and all the other snakes.”
But you didn’t have to work there for the zoo to stand out to you.
Especially if you’re living there.
“I lived there more than 60 years ago,” Adrian Beam James, whose dad worked at the zoo, said. “And that was 1959, [...] that daddy took that job, and we literally moved to zoo property.”
James was just a kid when she lived at the zoo.
And as you can imagine, living at a zoo is a dream come true as an 8-year-old.
But maybe it wasn’t her mother’s.
“I had this little eight year old,” James’ mother JoAn Thomas Beam said. “And so I had to make sure that she didn't get into the cages after night, so I had to keep an eye on her.”
James didn’t need those eyes on her to have a good time.
“But for an eight year old kid, I was in heaven,” James said. “I lived at the zoo. I had a park in my backyard. I had the best swing set, the best slide, the best seesaw. And I always had a new playmate every day.”
Normal people’s playmates? Cats and dogs. For Adrian, she had something a little more wild.
“And so all of a sudden, this bobcat cub was my little kitten, and I loved it,” James said. “Now, of course, it would sometimes remember that it was a bobcat and not a kitten, and it would just lash out and claw at me or snarl. But it was interesting having a little bobcat come in the house for a while.”
Among the many playmates Adrian got to choose from, there was a clear star of the show: a gibbon ape named Susie.
“She was extremely tame, and she was so endearing, and she was the star of the zoo, absolutely the star,” James said.
Even though Suzie could swing on the cage bars, the one thing she couldn’t swing… was time.
“But she had a lot of health problems then,” James said. “Bottom line, she was hospitalized a lot of the time after we got there, and eventually died during our time there. But it was such a loss. The zoo was in mourning over her, and she had her own little obituary in the paper.”
Sue was buried under the zoo when she died.
Finally put to rest by someone who also had that same love for her.
“My husband buried her,” Beam said. “We mourned for her for a long time, because my daughter would take her out walking in the park. And everybody was charmed by this little girl walking a gibbon.”
The Beam family left the park in January of 1964 when Mr. Beam got a new job as a police officer.
After they left, since it wasn’t supposed to be a zoo, problems arose, including the old facilities and unfavorable location.
After a failed bond proposal to build a new zoo, the zoo closed down in 1977, after 21 years of operation.
But the Beam family didn’t learn this until 2019.
And naturally, they wanted to go visit their old stomping ground, which was the Permian Basin Law Enforcement Academy, now the Midland Police Department Training Facility.
“When mother and I went back to Midland to see the zoo a few years ago,” James said. “We drove up in front of our house, and we stopped and got out and started walking around on top of our foundation. The policemen had, as an exercise, they had these giant tires, truck tires or something, laying on the foundation. An officer comes walking toward us. He's not acting threatening or acting like, ‘what the heck are you doing here?’ but he's coming to check out these two ladies-- mature ladies-- who are over on their little exercise pad that has these big tires. We had a nice visit with him. We told him what our history was there, and he was so pleasant. [...] He in turn invited us for a tour and put us in the back of his police car and drove us all around the zoo and the park and showed us how each part of it is used today for a sharp shooting practice and just different kinds of exercises. And it was fascinating,”
One Midland boy now man didn’t realize that he would end up back at the zoo, except without the animals, without the cages, but a new space to learn how to protect and serve.
“I lived in Midland,” Craig Rigtrup, former Midland resident, said. “Throughout the time I lived in Midland I obviously went to the zoo. And then I was in law enforcement when it became a shooting range. [...] It was a fun place to train, it was a fun place to shoot. And it's a really nice facility now, kind of the whole, you know, full circle thing. And the last time I was out there, I competed in the Police Olympics at the shooting range, which was once the zoo.”
Even though it’s been more than 40 years since the zoo left Midland, those zoo memories didn't leave the Midlanders who once called this place home. But if there’s one thing they all agree on, they would love to see it there one more time.
“I think that would be amazing. I think that would be awesome,” Cannon said. “I think there's definitely desire for something like that, zoos are wildly popular. I think people love taking their children to see nature and share nature with them.”
“I think if they have an opportunity to do that, they shouldn't miss it at all,” James said. “I would, I think a zoo is an important contribution to any city.”
A contribution the children of Midland would appreciate, no matter what age, or generation they come from.
Because experiencing a zoo is something you remember for a long time, just ask the 8-year-old who lived there and the 16-year-old who worked there more than 40 years ago.
Unfortunately, since we did the interview with the Beam family, JoAn Thomas Beam has sadly passed away at the age of 92. NewsWest 9 gives the Beam family our condolences.