tz
/ October 26, 2026
Seneca Park Zoo has been a fixture of Rochester, New York, since 1894, tucked into the Olmsted-designed Seneca Park along the Genesee River gorge. Operated by Monroe County with support from the Seneca Park Zoo Society, the zoo has grown from a small collection of…
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tz
/ October 26, 2026
The Santa Barbara Zoo opened in August 1963 on the former Child Estate, a Mediterranean-style property along the Santa Barbara coastline that had been donated to the city for public use. Built on the site of a mansion destroyed by a 1959 fire, the zoo…
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tz
/ October 25, 2026
Tucked inside Pueblo City Park in southern Colorado, the Pueblo Zoo has welcomed animal lovers since the early 1900s, when the city’s first scattered animal exhibits began drawing local crowds. The zoo’s historic core, built between 1933 and 1940 by Depression-era relief programs including the…
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tz
/ October 24, 2026
Potter Park Zoo has welcomed visitors in Lansing, Michigan since 1920, making it the oldest public zoo in the state. The zoo occupies about 20 acres within the larger Potter Park, a 102-acre riverside property along the Red Cedar River that the Potter family began…
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tz
/ October 23, 2026
The Rosamond Gifford Zoo sits inside Burnet Park in Syracuse, New York, tracing its roots back to a small four-acre menagerie that opened in 1914. What began as the Burnet Park Zoo grew over the decades into a full-scale accredited zoological facility, eventually taking on…
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tz
/ October 23, 2026
Roosevelt Park Zoo sits along the Souris River in Minot, North Dakota, and holds the distinction of being the oldest zoo in the state. What began in 1914 as a modest municipal menagerie with two dozen squirrels grew into a full-fledged zoo, renamed in 1922…
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tz
/ October 22, 2026
Riverbanks Zoo and Garden sits along the banks of the Saluda River in Columbia, South Carolina, combining a full-scale zoo with an expansive botanical garden on a single 170-acre campus. Since opening to the public on April 25, 1974, it has grown into one of…
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tz
/ October 21, 2026
The Red River Zoo sits on the edge of Fargo, North Dakota, a 33-acre park built on land once farmed by the Anderson family along the Red River Ranch. Since opening its first 8 acres in the spring of 1999, the zoo has grown into…
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tz
/ October 18, 2026
The Peoria Zoo sits inside Glen Oak Park in Peoria, Illinois, tracing its roots back to 1897, when the Peoria Park District dedicated a small zoological collection built around a donated elk herd. Over more than a century, that modest menagerie grew into an accredited…
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tz
/ October 18, 2026
Potawatomi Zoo sits inside Potawatomi Park on the east side of South Bend, Indiana, tucked between the St. Joseph River and the Grand Trunk railroad line. Founded in 1921 after Studebaker Corporation president Albert Russell Erskine donated a single deer to the city park board…
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tz
/ October 17, 2026
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium traces its roots to 1894, when the city first opened a small animal collection in Riverview Park. Over the following century it grew into one of the most respected zoos in the country, taking on the Henry Doorly name…
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tz
/ October 13, 2026
The Great Plains Zoo has welcomed visitors to Sioux Falls, South Dakota since opening on June 30, 1963. Spread across 45 acres, the zoo grew out of the Zoological Society of Sioux Falls, a nonprofit founded in 1957 to bring a permanent wildlife park to…
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tz
/ October 12, 2026
Miller Park Zoo sits inside Miller Park in Bloomington, Illinois, and traces its roots back to 1891, when the city first spent public money caring for animals kept in the park. Local lore holds that the collection got its real start around 1900, after a…
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tz
/ October 11, 2026
Lincoln Children’s Zoo opened on July 23, 1965, after Lincoln businessman Arnott Folsom spent years and his own personal funds planning a zoo designed specifically for kids. What began on just three acres of city land with around 120 animals has grown into a beloved…
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tz
/ October 11, 2026
The Lehigh Valley Zoo sits on about 29 acres inside the sprawling 1,100-acre Trexler Nature Preserve in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, a short drive from Allentown. The surrounding preserve traces its roots back to 1906, when local industrialist Harry Clay Trexler began buying up farmland to protect…
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tz
/ October 8, 2026
The Idaho Falls Zoo at Tautphaus Park has grown from a modest 1934 city menagerie of local bears and elk into a full AZA-accredited zoo tucked inside one of Idaho Falls’ busiest recreation parks. Exotic animals began arriving the following year, and the grounds have…
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tz
/ October 7, 2026
Tucked beneath a canopy of oak and pine trees in Kamper Park, the Hattiesburg Zoo has been a fixture of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, since it opened in 1950 on a donated 40-acre tract originally given to the city back in 1908. Despite its modest 12-acre footprint…
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tz
/ October 6, 2026
The Greensboro Science Center began on October 5, 1957, as the Greensboro Junior Museum, a small nature center started by the Junior League of Greensboro. Over the following decades it grew through name changes and expansions, from the Natural Science Center of Greensboro into the…
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tz
/ October 2, 2026
The Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park has been a fixture of downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee, since 1937, when it opened with little more than two small cages for rhesus monkeys. Nearly nine decades later, the AZA-accredited facility has grown into a compact but densely packed wildlife…
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tz
/ September 28, 2026
Buttonwood Park Zoo sits inside New Bedford, Massachusetts’ historic Buttonwood Park, and has been introducing visitors to wildlife since 1894. That makes it the third-oldest zoo in New England and one of the oldest in the entire United States, predating most of the sprawling zoos…
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