TOLEDO, Ohio — A lot of institutions have rarely-seen tombs of treasure where old and unused artifacts are kept; including the Toledo Zoo.
As renovation of the Zoo’s museum has been underway, Zoo officials have come across a curious collection of unusual, quirky and weird items that have been stored in the archive.
Kent Bekker is the Zoo’s Chief Mission officer:
“When we decided to renovate the museum, there were multiple rooms the basement where they stored any number of things," he said.
And any number of things means just that. Including a trove of items that are recognizable and many that aren’t.
“What is that?" Is a common question here as one surveys this inventory of the odd which runs the gamut from a predictable collection of animal skulls to an unpredictable collection of eye glasses that were used by opticians years ago.
Bekker led the team that removed the items from the basement and the storage areas of the museum and moved them to an off site warehouse. They had to catalogue each item and number them. There were thousands of items ranging from stacks of old paintings, and pictures to stacks of African spears and projectiles. Just how and when the zoo acquired them in its original natural history museum is unknown. A bit of a mystery still being unraveled.
When the zoo opened that first museum in the 1930’s, they made public invitations for people to donate items that might have historical or scientific interest. And according to a Toledo Blade article from 1936, they received numerous artifacts claiming valuable provenance. One item was a knife that was said to be owned by early French explorer, Etienne Brule. It’s not certain if that remain in the zoo’s inventory, not is it clear if they still own a map that was said to be owned by President Abraham Lincoln that he used to track troop movement during the Civil War. Those early donations were to be recorded and tracked by WPA workers at the times and kept in a Historical Records survey the Federal government was producing during the depression years.
The collection of curiosities the Toledo Zoo has kept in storage includes a large lot of early radio and electronic equipment. Most of those items are now collecting lint and dust.
One of them is an early Atwater Kent radio of 1920's vintage that probably tuned in the voices of President Wilson or Harding at one time. The story behind the origin of these old radios, has faded like a faraway signal
As the new museum facility opens next week at the zoo, most of these older items will be headed for long term storage or a new home, other, however, some will go on display again in a new venue.
Bekker said some pieces have meaning for area residents.
“There are some items that Toledoans just remember frankly like the Samurai sword and the Samurai suit, we will be displaying these in the indoor theater of the museum," Bekker said.
It's not certain what will become of the butterfly and Moth collection, or the many drawers filled with rocks and stones and fossils from the region. Then there is this weird wooden box which contains a hand-carved blonde-haired doll playing it.
It worked at one time, but Bekker said they have been unable to get the organ to play again. Who made this and why remains unanswered.
The Zoo personnel did discover a bizarre find that was not in the storage area.
Lodged in the ductwork of the building, they unearthed two broken gravestones of an early Toledo era. They were are the original tombstones of Mary Ann and Sara Prentice, the first wives, of Toledo's Frederick Prentice, the first native son of what would become Toledo.
He was born in 1822. Prentice became a wealthy businessman and millionaire and had four wives in his lifetime who are all presumed to be buried in the family plot at Willow Cemetery in Oregon.
The first wives were thought to have been first interred at the family farm which was roughly in what is now Rossford. These particular grave stones were unearthed by kids in 1972 in a dirt pile in Rossford.
They have been missing ever since until they were just found at the zoo. How they got into the duct work and why, awaits an answer.