By Tom Kohler
I call myself a “born-and-stayed Savannahian,” having lived here for 72 of my 74 years. These days, I usually get invited to talk about how things usta be. Now, I’ll admit up front that “usta” is a made-up word. With that said, it’s a great Savannah word.
So, I was at Starlandia Art Supply the other day and overheard what I imagine was a SCAD student say, “This town is a zoo.”
I’m guessing she meant that you can find all sorts of people here in Savannah, and I would suggest that compared to many other medium-sized southern cities, we do look a bit like Noah’s Ark — at least two of all manner of nationalities, career paths, faiths, genders, tattoo preferences and other identities, all present and accounted for these days. It’s not uncommon for me to hear Chinese, Spanish and English spoken around downtown in a single day. And that’s not how it usta be.
Thankfully we don’t have, need or want an actual zoo. No mention of this in any SPLOST wish list, though some of you may remember that we usta have a ‘zoo’ or two — or three.
Johnny Harris Restaurant had a small petting zoo. This was before my time, but the place is still remembered by the rare local who has crossed the line into their 90s and is now edging up toward their 100th birthday. Julie Donaldson Lowenthal shares the following in her lovely Johnny Harris Restaurant Cookbook.
“In early 1937 (Johnny) Harris created a small children’s petting zoo behind the restaurant featuring monkeys, exotic birds and other animals gathered on various hunting trips.”
Harris’s wife, Mary Sims Harris, loved animals and took an orphaned monkey home to raise as a family pet. The monkey came to be known as ‘Baby Girl,’ and Mrs. Harris came to be known as “The Monkey Lady.” The Johnny Harris Zoo was in operation from 1937 until after Harris’s death in 1942. Get the book if you like local history and local food. It’s got both.
Chico’s Monkey Farm was a stop for folks traveling Highway 17 from New York to Florida, as well as for local folks. Here are a few of many memories pulled from Facebook comments, along with a little background and entertainment.
“They had small animals and a chicken in a cage that danced for food. Maybe it was 10 or 25 cents to purchase the kernels.”
“My parents ran a fruit stand out of an old motel lobby on 17 near this place. Hated to go there. The sight of animal prisoners is still sad to me.”
“This property was known and operated as Mackie’s Monkey Farm before selling to Chico. It was well known as a gambling operation in the side rooms and continued with Chico. It was a northern stopover for gambling. However, the monkeys did not care, as there were plenty of folks not gambling to keep them happy.”
And here’s a little Chico’s Monkey Farm history…
And a little Chico’s Monkey Farm music…
My brother and I were never taken to Chico’s as children. My grandfather had a different route to keep us entertained. Papa would drive out Skidaway Road toward Memorial Stadium at about 20 miles an hour in his 1955 Bel Air Chevy — three-speed on the column.
He’d turn right onto Ferguson Avenue and head toward Bethesda Orphanage. Once there, he would drive into the pasture and put David and me up on the hood of the car so that we could pet the cows, whose nostrils and tongues seemed horrifically large. We would pet the cows and, if we were brave, jump down and run around in the field pretending to try not to step in cow dung.
The gentlemen in this much more recent photo look like they actually belong in the pasture, rather than being the interlopers that we were. Notice the cow pies dotting the landscape. Some things never change.
If David and I were really lucky, Papa would then drive us back down Ferguson Avenue at 20 miles an hour, take a right onto LaRoche, and then another right onto Bluff Drive on Isle of Hope so that we could go see the turtles and get a six-cent Coca-Cola at Barbee’s Pavilion.
Barbee’s wasn’t exactly a zoo. It was more of a country store and turtle farm. Mr. Barbee shipped his prized terrapins to the finest restaurants in New York and beyond, where their bodies made a highly prized (and priced) soup.
The legendary writer Joseph Mitchell visited and wrote about Barbee’s Pavilion in the October 28, 1939 issue of The New Yorker. Here’s an excerpt describing lunch and life on the Isle of Hope in the fall of 1939 — and a link to the entire piece. It’s a great read. Highly recommended.
Mr. Barbee’s Terrapin | The New Yorker
“….The table was laid on the back porch of the pavilion, overlooking the Skidaway, and there was a bottle of amontillado on it. Mr. Barbee and I had a glass of it, and then Mrs. Barbee brought out three bowls of terrapin stew, Southern style, so hot it was bubbling. The three of us sat down, and while we ate, Mrs. Barbee gave me a list of the things in the stew. She said it contained the meat, hearts, and livers of two diamondbacks killed early that day, eight yolks of hard-boiled eggs that had been pounded up and passed through a sieve, a half pound of yellow country butter, two pints of thick cream, a little flour, a pinch of salt, a dash of nutmeg, and a glass and a half of amontillado. The meat came off the terrapins’ tiny bones with a touch of the spoon, and it tasted like delicate baby mushrooms. I had a second and a third helping. The day was clear and cool, and sitting there, drinking dry sherry and eating terrapin, I looked at the scarlet leaves on the sweet gums and swamp maples on the riverbank, and at the sandpipers running stiff-legged on the sand, and at the people sitting in the sun on the decks of the yachts anchored in the Skidaway, and I decided that I was about as happy as a human can be in the autumn of 1939. After the stew we had croquettes made of crabmeat and a salad of little Georgia shrimp. Then we had some Carolina whiting that had been pulled out of the Atlantic at the mouth of the Skidaway early that morning. With the sweet, tender whiting, we had butter beans and ears of late corn that were jerked off the stalk only a few minutes before they were dropped in the pot. We began eating at one o’clock; at four we had coffee.”
When I first read Mitchell’s essay several years ago, I was struck by how idyllic so much of it seemed… that was not the image the year 1939 conjured up in my mind…
1939 World’s Fair: The fascist Italia Pavilion in New York continued to draw millions of visitors, using “classical-modern” design to project a coherent, idealized image of the Italian fascist state.
Establishment of ghettos: The first Nazi-established ghetto, the Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, was founded in occupied Poland on October 8.
Forced labor: On October 26, the Nazis instituted obligatory forced labor for Jewish males in Poland. Earlier in the month, a secret decree granted amnesty to German personnel for crimes committed during the invasion, justifying them as “natural responses” to Polish actions.
We all have our own realities shaped by time, place and circumstance. We all see the present framed by our understanding of the past. 1939 was a very different year depending on where your people usta live and what was gonna happen next.
About the author
Tom Kohler has lived in Savannah for 72 of his 74 years. He attended our local public schools, Armstrong and the University of Georgia. He was educated at Jim Collins Bar. The founder and longtime coordinator of Chatham Savannah Citizen Advocacy has been involved in creating a variety of civic organizations thru the years including the Jim Collins Bar Alumni Association, Savannah Rocks!, and Emergent Savannah.
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