One of the things I love most about being on the road is discovering the stories that remind me how much one person’s vision can shape the future of a community.

That happened to me in Brownsville, Texas, at the Gladys Porter Zoo.

In 1968, Gladys Sams Porter sat down with zoo director Dr. Warren Thomas and began working on an idea that was wildly ahead of its time: build a zoo designed around breeding groups of rare and disappearing animals — not simply to display them, but to save them.

Gladys Porter was already building the zoo five years before the United States passed the Endangered Species Act. Not only was Gladys ahead of the game, as Pat Burchfield, the zoo’s long-term director, explained she was willing to put her resources behind it.

Gladys was the daughter of Earl C. Sams, the first employee ever hired by James Cash Penney in Kemmerer, Wyoming, back when the store was still called the Golden Rule. Earl Sams eventually rose to become chairman of what became J.C. Penney. When he died, his daughters, Gladys and Camille, both of whom had married men from Brownsville, helped bring the family foundation’s impact south.

She found the perfect partner in Dr. Warren Thomas, a remarkable zoo leader with an equally remarkable story. As a veterinary student interning at the Columbus Zoo in 1956, Thomas helped save a newborn gorilla whose mother had not cleaned or revived her baby. He got the baby breathing, and that gorilla — Colo — became the first captive-born gorilla in the world to survive.

Thomas later helped build the Oklahoma City Zoo and Omaha’s zoo into world-class institutions. By the time Gladys Porter met him, he was one of the most forward-thinking zoo leaders in the country.

Together, they built something that had never been done in the United States: a zoo constructed from the ground up around natural habitat design. No bars. No cages. Hidden moats separated animals. The goal was to create something that felt, as much as possible, like the places these animals came from.

When the Gladys Porter Zoo opened in 1971, it changed what American zoos could be.

The mission has proven itself many times over. Today, the zoo participates in more than 40 Species Survival Plans — coordinated breeding programs that help protect endangered animals across accredited institutions. Species like Arabian oryx, golden lion tamarins, black-footed ferrets, California condors, and scimitar oryx are still with us, in part, because institutions like this refused to let them disappear.

One of the things that really struck me during my visit was how the mission of a zoo has evolved. Pat told me that when he began in this field, the most important thing a zoo could do was assemble breeding populations. Today, he believes the most important work is education.

That makes all the sense in the world.

Most children today are growing up in urban environments. For many of them, zoos, aquariums, and parks may be the only meaningful windows they ever get into the natural world. The Gladys Porter Zoo’s education department provides formal classes for 45,000 students a year. Not just field trips. Not just walking around and looking at animals. Actual curriculum designed to help create the next generation of people who care whether the natural world survives.

That is quality-of-life work at its very best.

Gladys Porter died unexpectedly in 1980 at the age of 70, but her vision did not die with her. Her family challenged the zoo to raise $3 million and promised to match it dollar for dollar to establish an endowment. The community met the challenge, and the zoo has been operating on that foundation ever since — lean, determined, and always finding a way to keep moving forward.

Now, for the first time in the zoo’s history, the City of Brownsville is recognizing it as the major tourism asset it truly is and investing accordingly. The zoo recently acquired 10 acres across the street, with plans for a new African savanna, a West African tropical rainforest, and a themed hotel. A zipline already gives visitors a view of downtown Matamoros on one side and SpaceX on the other. The goal is not just to maintain a zoo.

The goal is to make Brownsville a destination.

I’ve visited a lot of communities, and one thing I have learned is that the places that thrive are the ones that understand what makes them truly unique — and then have the courage to invest in it.

I left more convinced than ever that quality-of-life investments are not extras. They are part of what gives a community its soul.

To learn more about the Gladys Porter Zoo, visit gpz.org.

About Ron on the Road

Ron Holifield speaks to over 2,000 local government officials annually and has coffee with over 250 local government officials each year as part of his travels. If you have a cool site you think he should visit, email Ron@CivicMarketplace.com. 

NOTE: This column was written with the assistance of Melissa Valentine, senior director of operations and support at Civic Marketplace. 

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