Timeline of the Henry Vilas Zoo
Take a look through the history of Madison’s favorite zoo.
START
The Wisconsin Heritage Exhibit, highlighting Wisconsin’s mining history and the story of Bucky Badger, opens in October. The new exhibit features American badgers and sandhill cranes.
Construction is completed on Arctic Passage, the largest renovation in the zoo’s history. The new exhibit complex includes many exciting features, including special conservation and sustainability components, the zoo’s first indoor restaurant (The Glacier Grille), and large, state-of-the-art exhibits for the zoo’s polar bears, grizzly bears, and harbor seals.
The Animal Health Center, the zoo’s state-of-the-art veterinary medical facility, opens in the spring.
The Children’s Zoo “Red Barn” is completed. This sustainably-designed building houses top quality habitats with minimal environmental impact. It also provides wonderful educational opportunities.
A year-round flamingo exhibit opens. The Children’s Zoo Train begins to offer rides.
The Children’s Zoo animal exhibits are completed and feature a red panda, wallaby, porcupine, meerkats, and white-handed gibbons.
The North American Prairie exhibit opens, bringing bison, prairie dogs, and a badger to the zoo. The Conservation Carousel begins offering rides.
The zoo opens its new $4.2 million Tropical Rainforest Aviary and completes a concept plan for the $27 million Zoo Century capital campaign.
A new visitors center (now called Anna Vilas Hall) opens after a $1.25 million renovation of the former aviary. The center houses a permanent zoo history exhibit and the zoos’ seasonal exhibits.
A new primate house opens for the zoo’s orangutans, colobus monkeys, and gibbons.
The Discovery Center and Herpetarium, home to slithery reptiles and amphibians, opens.
Two orphaned polar bear cubs, Nanuq and Norton, are brought to the zoo from Alaska.
The new penguin exhibit opens.
The zoo opens its seal exhibit.
The zoo unveils a remodeled home for its big cats, replacing the original 1917 lion house.
The Children’s Zoo opens, allowing kids to get up close and personal with a sea lion, baby elephant, fawns, bear cubs, toucans and other animals.
The zoo spends a record $10,000 to bring in a young pair of giraffes.
The zoo’s first primate house is built.
The zoo’s first lion house is built.
The first bear exhibit is built.
The Henry Vilas Zoo officially opens as the first animal exhibits are built.
William F. and Anna M. Vilas donate a 63-acre tract of land for Vilas Park, with the stipulation that no admission be charged. It was named in memory of the couple’s son, Henry, who died at a young age five years earlier due to complications from diabetes.