Zoo Boise got its start when an escaped circus monkey was captured between Mountain Home and Boise in 1917.
Norris Fritchman recounted the story to the local paper in 1960. “I was on the road for Idaho Candy company with another salesman, and we had stayed overnight in Mountain Home. The next day, about Hammett, this fellow happened to look over to the railroad right-of-way and he yelled, ‘my gosh, that looks like a monkey sitting on a fence post.’”
They stopped their Maxwell and gave chase to the “monkey,” which turned out to be a chimpanzee. They put on driving gloves and grabbed a piece of twine to use as a leash. A banana made the chimp happy.
Fritchman gave the chimpanzee to the city to put on display in Julia Davis Park. That was fine for the summer. When winter came the city moved the animal, now named “Chris” to a cell in city hall next to some prisoners. They found Chris a companion to keep him company. There was some friction between the prisoners and the chimps, which resulted in the animals being poisoned.
That first ill-fated chimp stirred the desire for a zoo in the citizenry. They acquired some monkeys, then an alligator who had outgrown his home in the window of a Nampa drugstore. In 1919 the park board purchased a couple of tigers and the zoo was off and running.
