Barless bear enclosure-- Mesker Zoo. Designed and built by Gilmore M. Haynie Evansville, Indiana. In 1916, Mesker Park was no more than a cluttered and undeveloped picnic area. Thanks to a $25,000 cash gift George Mesker gave to the city to purchase more land around the park, the dilapidated 50-acres became the site to one of the finest zoos in the country. Gilmore M. Haynie, visionary and proponent of the Park's transformation, became the executive secretary of the city park board in 1916, and later the board's president. Once Mesker's donation was realized, both Haynie and Mayor Benjamin Bosse created a plan to change the face of Mesker Park. The next 15 years saw weeds pulled, paths built, lights added, areas cleared, and a fine menagerie of random critters added to the planned zoo, featuring a goat, three rabbits, one raccoon, and six chickens. Belle and Brutus, the main attractions, were gifted lions from the American Circus Association, followed by a black bear from the Denver Zoo. On June 14, 1929, the park acquired its biggest creature when Kay, an 11,000-pound elephant, joined the team. Haynie utilized Works Progress Administration labor and efficient building strategies to do with $250,000 dollars what $2 million projected dollars would have done. He oversaw the design and construction of one the first barless bear exhibits in the country, followed by the unique, one-third concrete scale model of Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria, crewed by 20 rhesus monkeys. Haynie, whose wife Mildred founded Haynie Travel in 1938, was a world traveler who was inspired by zoos he visited in Germany for these ideas. Barless exhibits became the zoological standard for innovative and best practices largely due to the concepts he introduced in Evansville. In 1936, Mesker donated more funds to build the Mesker Amphitheatre that boasted seating room for 8,500. Mesker Park Zoo was rapidly becoming Evansville's number one attraction, receiving international renown for its ingenuity, creativity, and unique topographical use of space. During the zoo's initial design, Haynie contributed to another innovative barless den, this time for the lions, with spot-on botanical accuracy and an imitation African watering hole smack dab in the center of the zoo. It created a draw, says Amos Morris, current director of the zoo. The lions would stand on a pinnacle, and as you walk around the perimeter of the zoo you could almost always see them. (http://www.evansvilleliving.com/articles/its-a-zoo-out-there) Gilmore Haynie is the grandfather to the originator of this collection.