Waco's Zoo Traveled From an Airfield Fire Station to Cameron Park

Waco's zoo story began with an animal exhibit at the 1955 Heart O' Texas Fair. The display was meant to build support for a permanent zoo. Supporters organized the Central Texas Zoological and Botanical Society the next year, then built the Central Texas Zoo in 1956 and 1957.

For roughly four years, that early zoo occupied the former Blackland Army Air Field fire station. A fire in February 1960 forced another move, this time to land near the municipal airport. The zoological society kept pressing for the Cameron Park home envisioned from the start.

After years of studies, fundraising, a failed city bond, and construction, Cameron Park Zoo opened in 1993. More than 9,000 people attended the ribbon cutting. In 2005, its Brazos River Country exhibit added animals from the river basin between the Panhandle and Gulf. The zoo had traveled through a fair and two airfield sites before settling near the Brazos and telling part of the river's story.