The Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo is a privately owned zoo located on Whittington Avenue in

Hot Springs, Arkansas Hot Springs is a resort city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Garland County. The city is located in the Ouachita Mountains among the U.S. Interior Highlands, and is set among several natural hot springs for which the city is n ...

. The farm raises

alligator An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis''). Additiona ...

s and has done so since it was founded in 1902. The farm includes a small museum with a collection of mounted alligators, a souvenir shop and a snack bar. It includes the mummified carcass purporting to be a "

Merman Mermen, the male counterparts of the mythical female mermaids, are legendary creatures, which are male human from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down, but may assume normal human shape. Sometimes they are described as hideous and other ...

", similar to ones held in Ripley's Believe It or Not! museums. The main alligator pit contains a small headstone, a memorial to somebody's fox terrier that was killed by alligators on that spot in 1906.

History

H. L. Campbell founded the farm in 1902 because he thought the Hot Springs area needed a tourist attraction in addition to the

thermal baths A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (and sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments, which are also known as baln ...

. He sold it to D. S. Older some time before 1929. During this time it was called the "Hot Springs Gator Farm", and had up to 1500 alligators and included a small museum. The farm was sold to Jack Bridges, Sr. and his wife in 1945, and the name was changed to the Arkansas Alligator Farm. The Bridges added a gift shop, and well as other animals such as monkeys, raccoons, and logger-head turtles. Jack Bridges Jr. and his wife Sue purchased the zoo in 1965, and added more animals, as well as a petting zoo and a small museum.

Exhibits

In addition to about 200 alligators, the zoo now includes cougars,

turkeys The turkey is a large bird in the genus ''Meleagris'', native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (''Meleagris ocellat ...

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked t ...

s, bobcats, and ring-tailed lemurs. The farm includes a petting zoo with

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus '' Dromaius''. The emu ...

llama The llama (; ) (''Lama glama'') is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian era. Llamas are social animals and live with others as a herd. Their wool is soft ...

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus ...

s, baby

s, and other animals. Visitors can get close to the animals and feed them. The alligator feeding show also includes educational material about the animals.

Business

The farm started out as a business to raise alligators for their hides and to sell live alligators to parks and zoos. The farm was one of the first to use incubators to help raise the eggs into hatchlings. In its early days, visitors were able to purchase live baby alligators from the farm.

Baseball history and the alligator farm

In 1918, the Alligator Farm became part of

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...

baseball lore, due to its location directly across from Whittington Park, then the Spring Training home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Ruth, playing in a 1918 spring training game for the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

on St. Patrick's Day, hit a home run that traveled an astonishing , over Whittington Avenue that landed in the second pond at the alligator farm. At the time, Ruth was a star pitcher. However, he soon became a legendary hitter, in part due to his home run that day. A prominent marker inside the Alligator Farm recognizes the event. Also on the property of the Alligator Farm today, is the field that was once Fogel Field. This field is adjacent to the parking lot and is used for overflow parking. Fogel Field was constructed by Hot Springs in 1912 as a spring training site for

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

teams. Named for Horace Fogel, President of the Philadelphia Phillies, Fogel Field hosted the Phillies (1912) and the Pittsburgh Pirates (1921–1923, 1926). Later, the

Kansas City Monarchs The Kansas City Monarchs were the longest-running franchise in the history of baseball's Negro leagues. Operating in Kansas City, Missouri, and owned by J. L. Wilkinson, they were charter members of the Negro National League from 1920 to 19 ...

(1928),

Homestead Grays The Homestead Grays (also known as Washington Grays or Washington Homestead Grays) were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues in the United States. The team was formed in 1912 by Cumberland Posey, and remained in continuo ...

(1930–1931) and

Pittsburgh Crawfords The Pittsburgh Crawfords, popularly known as the Craws, were a professional Negro league baseball team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team, previously known as the Crawford Colored Giants, was named after the Crawford Bath House, a recre ...

(1932-1935) of the

Negro leagues The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

used Fogel Field as their spring training site. Outside the Alligator Farm, as part of the Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail are markers for Babe Ruth and Fogel Field. The Ruth marker reads: The Fogel Field plaque reads:

Media

The zoo was featured on

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

and the TV show '' Untamed and Uncut'' when an animal handler was attacked by an alligator. The Babe Ruth 573-foot home run and the Alligator Farm are featured in ''The First Boys of Spring'' (2015), a documentary focusing on the historical importance of Hot Springs spring training baseball. The documentary is narrated by Arkansas native, actor

Billy Bob Thornton Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, filmmaker and musician. He had his first break when he co-wrote and starred in the 1992 thriller ''One False Move'', and received international attention after writing, directing, a ...

and produced by Larry Foley. The documentary began airing nationally on the

MLB Network The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox C ...

in February, 2016.

References

External links

* * * http://www.hotspringsbaseballtrail.com/ {{authority control Zoos in Arkansas Buildings and structures in Hot Springs, Arkansas 1902 establishments in Arkansas Tourist attractions in Garland County, Arkansas Zoos established in 1902 Babe Ruth Spring training ballparks