Utah Zoological Society was founded in 1911 inside Liberty Park. For the next twenty years, the small, unsophisticated location housed monkeys, birds, and elephant Princess Alice purchased from a traveling circus. But the location was subpar: Princess Alice escaped often, wandering down 700 East. In 1931 Mr. and Mrs. James Hogle donated 32 acres at the mouth of Emigration Canyon for Hogle Gardens (Utah’s Hogle Zoo).

The first years were tough due to the Depression and pre-WWII financial pressures. In 1941, the Salt Lake Telegram ran a brutal series of articles exposing the “deplorable conditions” at the zoo (Hale).

The expose was effective, and within the year, the city was making tangible steps to improve the zoo. In fact, in 1942, the zoo was appealing to the public to donate unwanted pets. And by 1945, the zoo had opened new pathways and exhibits (Utah’s Hogle Zoo).

But issues remained with the bears and big cats. In 1946, a “shabby” looking year-old bear squeezed out of a small hole in his cage at Hogle Gardens and escaped to the hills (Zoo bear). Later that year (1946), the Hogle family donated additional funds to build “new cages for different animals of the cat family and new natural caves for different kinds of bears” (Asset instead). But the bear inventory grew before the new bear facilities were built: two Russian bear cubs from the Detroit Zoo (1947), two troublesome brown bear cubs from Snow Basin (1948).

It wasn’t until 1956 that AEB began design of the Bear and Cougar Grotto (Special collections) primarily for polar bears (beastking04). By 1959, there were both polar bears and Kodiak bears in the grotto (March coming). The last polar bear died in 2003 at which time the grotto housed grizzly bears (Beastking04).

In 2021, Hogle Zoo demolished the 65-year old AEB bear and cougar grotto and replaced it with Rocky Shores, a more sophisticated bear environment (Beastking04).