Welcome Back to the Main Valley

Welcome Back to the Main Valley. Historic Maryland Zoo. , The Main Valley is the oldest section of the Maryland Zoo, formerly known as the Baltimore Zoo. Now antiquated, overgrown, and mostly vacant, it is where the small, informal zoo at the center of Druid Hill Park began in the mid-19th century., In its earliest days, the zoo was a tiny menagerie of random animals entrusted to the Park Superintendent by local citizens. People enjoyed visiting the animals in the park so much, though, that ins 1876 the Maryland General Assembly agreed to formally create, and presumably fund, "a zoological collection within the limits of Druid Hill Park for the purpose of public exhibition for the instruction and recreation of the people." Four years later, an 1880 inventory listed 298 animals in the Zoo's collection, including 215 deer, 26 geese, 15 white rats, 13 monkeys, 9 rabbits, 4 owls, 3 swans, 2 black bears, 2 wolves, 2 boa constrictors, 1 tiger, 1 gray fox, 1 "nose bear" (not sure what that is), 1 ostrich, 1 wild cat, and 1 three-legged duck.