Selig Zoo
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The Selig Zoo in Los Angeles, California was an early 20th century animal collection managed by Col. W.N. Selig for use in Selig Polyscope Company films and as a tourist attraction. Over the years the zoo was also known as the Luna Park Zoo, California Zoological Gardens, Zoopark, and, eventually, Lincoln Amusement Park. After Westerns, "animal pictures" were Selig's second-most popular genre of film product.
Selig Zoo archway, 1955
Selig's Wild Animal Farm 1911ish to 1914ish somewhere in Santa Monica near a streetcar line
Animal collection highlights, 1915
Promotional drawing for the planned Selig Zoo Park in East LA, with light rail connections, cars speeding towards the entrance and long lines depicted at the gate. Only a single carousel was ever built and the site struggled as a lightly visited zoo for over a decade.
Universal City Zoo
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Universal City Zoo was a private animal collection in southern California that provided animals for silent-era Universal Pictures adventure films, circus pictures, and animal comedies, and to "serve as a point of interest" for tourists visiting Universal City. The animals were also leased to other studios. The zoo was closed in 1930, after cinema's transition to synchronized sound complicated the existing systems for using trained animals onscreen.
"Animal cages at Universal City" (Scientific American, 1915)
Universal City animal shipment 1913; note logos for IMP (Independent Moving Pictures, Carl Laemmle's first operation) and 101 Bison.
Universal City and the Los Angeles River, undated postcard
"Training Animal Actors for the Pictures" featuring Curley Stecker, his daughter (with lion cubs), and Joe Martin (1920)