3 Storyland Ticket Stubs San Francisco California Zoo




Storyland opened July 25, 1959 and cost $200,000 to create, half put up by the city and the rest split between donations from Municipal Judge Francis McCarty and the estate of Herbert F. Fleishhacker. Originally it wasn’t part of the zoo, but a separate Recreation and Park Department venture – and so while the zoo was free of charge, a stroll through Storyland in the early years cost kids a dime and everyone else 15 cents. Almost 8,000 people attended on opening day and the first month’s attendance was more than 200,000. (Ward admitted the attraction had a significant problem in its opening weeks: “We’ll be putting in restrooms here on the Storyland area proper just as soon as we get the money.”) Storyland wasn’t unique, but rather inspired by the older Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, which is still in business today. Many cities jumped on the fairy-tale attraction bandwagon in the 1950s and 1960s as fairylands, storylands and Santa’s Village parks popped up across the country. In 1964, Rec and Park transferred the Storyland operation to the San Francisco Zoo, although it still cost extra to get in (and zoo admission soon stopped being free). By the early 1990s the fog, the ocean winds and a generation of hard-climbing children had worn the exhibits to a shabby state. The zoo, which had already begun its reinvention as a more educational than recreational destination, replaced Storyland with a nature trail. The last piece of Storyland, Rapunzel’s Castle, was torn down in 1996.