Here’s the scoop on how the N.C. Zoo came to be

One of the Old North State’s great success stories is the public/private partnership that created the North Carolina Zoo in Randolph County, south of Asheboro. The idea began to percolate nearly 60 years ago.

Mary Esther Baker of Visit NC Concierge in Raleigh recently shared a bit of zoo history. Her friend Bob Leak Sr. of Winston-Salem was working for the state as an economic development specialist in 1964, when Dan K. Moore, an attorney from Asheville, was elected as North Carolina’s governor.

 

Mary Esther Baker

Bob Leak was asked to “strategize about ideas for creating something for which Gov. Moore would be remembered,” Baker said. “Bob thought about it for a minute and suggested that North Carolina establish a zoo. He thought that would be a fitting legacy for Gov. Moore.”

 

Gov. Moore

“Whenever Bob traveled across the country recruiting business and industry, the people he spoke with were always impressed with the fact that North Carolina supported a state symphony, a state art museum and a state history museum. Why not a state-supported zoo, he thought?” 

“Gov. Moore liked Bob’s idea and authorized him to do additional research,” Baker said. “Bob called the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, seeking guidance on how to proceed. They were elated. They told him there were no state zoos in the country.” 

“First of all, a study needed to be done to determine location. The cost of that study was $50,000. When Bob reported back, Gov. Moore told him regretfully there were no monies available for the study, and the idea would have to be shelved,” Baker reported. 

“Within about a month of that ‘shelving,’ Norwood Pope of Raleigh, president of the North Carolina Jaycees and confidant of Gov. Moore, shared with the governor that the Raleigh Jaycees chapter was hosting the first NFL exhibition game in North Carolina and would be donating the proceeds to a ‘worthy cause.’” 

The Jaycees wanted a state zoo, too, so the “worthy cause” was no secret.

 The inaugural Jaycees Charity Classic football game was played Aug. 19, 1967, under the lights at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh. Some 33,525 fans paid $6 per ticket to watch the Washington Redskins tangle on the gridiron with the New York Giants. 

The game was hyped as a “homecoming” for Wilmington-born Christian Adolph “Sonny” Jurgensen III, who played college ball at Duke University and was the Redskins’ starting quarterback. He led his squad to a 31-13 win over the Giants, who featured Francis Asbury “Fran” Tarkenton as its quarterback.

(Jurgensen and Tarkenton were inducted into the National Football League’s Hall of Fame.)

Baker said the Jaycees cleared way more money on the game than the zoo study would cost, so Gov. Moore told Bob Leak to schedule the study. 

The General Assembly created the North Carolina Zoological Authority in 1969, during Gov. Moore’s final year in office, and the site selection process got underway. 

In 1971, the group selected a wooded parcel at Purgatory Mountain in Randolph County, almost smack-dab in the middle of the state. Immediately thereafter, a regional group of business leaders raised $435,000 to plow into the project to bring the necessary infrastructure to the site. 

The kingpin in this effort was William David Steadman of Asheboro, president of Stedman Corporation, a prominent textile and apparel manufacturing firm.

 

David Steadman

Today, the North Carolina Zoo is the world’s largest natural habitat zoo. The zoo employs 225 full-time workers and more than 400 during the peak visitor season and generates more than $184 million a year in economic activity.