Animals are Atlantans too

Think about what it takes from the animal kingdom to impress us these days. We have to have a palatial aquarium and a constant stream of newborn pandas to keep us interested. It’s no wonder that we have orangutans dropping dead left and right and gorillas having rage black-outs everywhere. Primates used to be the toast of the town just a couple of decades ago! Now they have to play constant second fiddle to an animal for whom 99% of his diet is a highly-invasive species of grass.

Willie B. for Congress - Children with campaign posters

Look, I’ve wasted countless hours on Panda Cam like everyone else, but don’t you remember when animals at Zoo Atlanta were named after beloved mayors instead of names selected by fast food Asian restaurants, and when those animals at the zoo could actually launch a campaign for the United States House of Representatives?

Dog and man

But before even Willie B, Atlanta had a deep fondness for simpler creatures – dogs, cows, ponies. As recently as 1900 Atlanta was trying very hard to be sophisticated and forget its rough-and-tumble roots. This was just 20 or so years after the “cow ordinance” was perhaps comparable to “PARK Atlanta” in controversy and disdain, when the city tried to make it illegal for residents to let their cows graze wherever they liked. Can you imagine? The ordinance was approved, and then seen as bad for poor people and repealed, and finally adopted again and fully enforced. Our grizzly pioneer past was over and it was time to find new and fascinating ways for animals to stay involved in our daily lives with common livestock no longer running the business district.

Storyland (1956)

By the 1950s, cows were only useful in the context of winning a blue ribbon at the state fair; with the combination of Shriners and single-family housing taking over Atlanta, we had a different set of expectations for the roles that animals played in our lives: PURE ENTERTAINMENT. And not entertainment like sitting behind a glass wall, pretending they are living in their native habitat. Entertainment as in acting as human as possible. Now we dress our dogs in human clothes but back then it was really more about the novelty of chimps in human clothes riding a dog like a horse, or putting a skunk in a baby carriage and taking it on a train. You’ll see what I mean – TAKE A LOOK.

Shriners leaving on train at Terminal Station, Sweet Pea the skunk in a baby carriage (1947)

Mrs. C. Evans McKinney painting a dog

(I can’t confirm this photo below is Mrs. E. J. Carst of Atlanta’s homemade bird hospital, but she’s feeding that parakeet Coca-Cola which was used to settle the stomach back in the day, so I kind of wonder!)

Woman with a dog and bird

Shrine circus - dog and monkey (1951)

Circus - Atlanta Municipal Auditorium

U.S.O. - Soldiers and kittens (1943)

Southeastern Fair booth - Mrs. W.E. Bird; playing piano (1957)

Monkey on Peachtree Street (1949)

Shriner circus - Atlanta Municipal Auditorium

Shriner circus - Atlanta Municipal Auditorium - Lion cubs

Man with groundhog

Gallant Bess (horse) (1949)

And if you weren’t lucky enough to have a real living animal working in your office, or riding a bicycle in front of you, then you could always line up a few stuffed ones and teach them some tricks.

Teenage girl lying in bed (1960)

Baley Smith, C&S Bank Building

All photos are from the Georgia State University photographs special collections.

Tags: animals, circus, shriners