User:Buster7/Sandbox-Bushman


 * Lifelong keeper - Eddie Robinson
 * Birth: Most likely, the spring of 1928
 * Death: New Years day, 1951
 * Height: 6'2''
 * Weight: 550 pds.
 * Armspan: 12'
 * Handprint: 13''
 * Purchase price: $3500 See History
 * One of only 5 lowland gorillas in the States; 4 in zoos and one in show biz.
 * Named "The Most Valuable Zoo Animal in the World" by the nations zoo directors in 1946
 * Named "the most photographed animal of all time" by The Chgo Press Photographers Assoc in 1950.
 * Source: The Ark in the Park; The Story of Lincoln Park Zoo, ISBN/9780-252-07138-6
 * Bushman while alive, brought over 100 million visitors to the zoo; his remains can now be seen at Chicago's Field Museum.

History
In 1930, most African animals were still exotic creatures from a little-known land. When an orphaned infant gorilla named Bushman arrived at Lincoln Park Zoo on August 15, 1930, he quickly became an international attraction.

He appeared in newsreels. The nation's zoo directors voted him "the most outstanding animal in any zoo in the world and the most valuable." A Marine Corps reserve battalion named him the gorilla that would be most welcome in establishing a beachhead. Taken from Cameroon in West Africa, Bushman was sold to the zoo for $3,500 by a Presbyterian missionary and an animal trader. Bushman was said to be the first of his kind west of the Potomac River, and he looked, one writer said in 1947, "like a nightmare that escaped from darkness into daylight and has exchanged its insubstantial form for 550 pounds of solid flesh. His face is one that might be expected to gloat through the troubled dreams that follow overindulgence. His hand is the kind of thing a sleeper sees reaching for him just before he wakes up screaming."

Photographed often, the solitary animal was a temperamental subject, often hurling food and his dung at photographers. Those who had been pelted claimed the gorilla's aim was more accurate than that of any Cubs or White Sox pitcher. Although he might not have always enjoyed the limelight, Bushman was a publicity godsend to the zoo, which had opened in 1868 with a pair of swans donated by New York's Central Park. Hemmed in on just 35 acres, the zoo became an international center for gorilla breeding as well as a popular city attraction. Its suburban counterpart, Brookfield Zoo, sprawling over 216 acres, has emphasized naturalistic surroundings since opening in 1934.

But no other animal in a Chicago-area zoo has ever drawn the crowds as Bushman did in his stark steel cage. On a single June day in 1950, about 120,000 people flocked to see Bushman when he was thought to be dying. The gorilla rallied and captured headlines once more before he died.

In October 1950, he escaped from his cage through an unlocked door and roamed a kitchen and corridor for nearly three hours before a harmless garter snake frightened him back into his cage. He died on New Year's Day in 1951, and for weeks, mourners filed past his cage. His mounted remains are displayed at the Field Museum of Natural History.

Copyright © 2014 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC

Lincoln Park Zoo’s Bushman fondly remembered by girl who helped raise him
Bushman the gorilla, here about 1-2 years old in Cameroon South Africa and about a year before he made the journey to America is held by Roberta Hope, far right, circa 1920's. Other Hope sisters; Esther Hope, far left, holds another baby gorilla and her sister, Winifred Hope, center, holds a monkey called 'Minky.'  Bushman is presently on display at the Field Museum and a popular Chicago attraction and legend. | Photo Courtesy Lincoln Park Zoo

Updated: April 19, 2013 6:23AM

Before he became famous, Bushman the gorilla was simply Winifred Hope Smith’s beloved pet. She and her sisters played with the future Lincoln Park Zoo icon while they were growing up in west Africa in the late 1920s. The gorilla later grew into a hulking, 550-pound star who attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to the zoo every year. Smith remembers him as the affectionate, soft-furred youngster who came into her life when he was less than a year old and immediately stole her heart. “He wanted us to hold him. When I’d put him down, he’d sit on my foot and grab my leg and go everywhere I did,” Smith said Saturday, smiling at the memory. Smith, now 92, returned to Chicago this weekend with several family members to visit Bushman’s former zoo and to see his remains, which are on permanent display at the Field Museum. Regenstein Center for African Apes.

Smith was the daughter of Christian missionaries and spent much of her girlhood living with her family in Cameroon. When she was about 9 years old, Bushman came to live with the family (actually in a cage outside their home} while his owner tried to find a buyer for him. He stayed with the family for more than a year, until 1930, when the young gorilla was sold to the zoo. She visited him once in the late 1940s at the zoo (where he was a star attraction} but was upset to see him locked up by himself behind bars in an otherwise empty cage. The visit came not long before his 1951 death. “He acted interested, but I’m not sure.”.

Autopsy
Imprpoer Diet