TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - The Toledo Zoo is preserving history dating all the way back to the Great Depression.
Nick Hartzell, an artist from Temperance, MI, was recently hired to restore the hand-painted murals inside the Reptile House.
The murals were painted back in the 1930s, after the building was built. It was all a part of the Works Progress Administration.
None of the nature scenes have changed, but Hartzell says some of the murals were tougher to refurbish than others.
"The paint through weathering and humid conditions, and stuff like that it peels away from the concrete, so you have to go back in there with a putty knife and scrape everything away that's loose, look at the area and figure out what colors were used in that area before and make it work," said Hartzell.
The zoo says it's all about preserving history.
"The art here is all original art. Where possible we've tried to maintain the art and where it's absolutely necessary we try to maintain the spirit of the art," said Andy Odum.
She says the project took about a month to complete and in the end Hartzell refurbished five of the original murals.
The last time these murals were touched up was back in the 1980s.
