Dr. Richard B. Knight
Founder of the Oregon Zoo

By Dawn Stanton

How did an apothecary end up owning two bears? Thirty-nine-year-old Richard B. Knight, druggist and owner of the drug store located at 270 Morrison Street, might have pondered just this question in 1887. His wife did not approve of his purchase of the animals (she called it "a foolish extravagance"), and he had four young children, the oldest no older than twelve, to worry about whenever they went near the animals. What's more, he was keeping the two animals staked in a vacant lot at Morrison and Third, next to his store in downtown Portland. Not exactly an ideal location for animals that can weigh more than 800 lbs. and reach 9' tall when standing erect on hind legs.

Knight himself normally kept a low profile. Though he had a full, rather bushy beard and thick eyebrows, he would not otherwise stand out in a crowd. Daughter Edith recalled that he was well-liked in the community but rarely attended social events. His neat storefront reflected this unobtrusive manner as well. At a time when downtown Portland lacked a means of garbage collection and disposal, and garbage littered many of the sidewalks and streets, Knight kept a clean sidewalk in front of his store and an unobstructed doorway. His store even lacked an awning, which many others had. One wonders how much having the bears, named Grace and Brownie, staked out next to an otherwise orderly, unostentatious place of business must have vexed the druggist.

So in a letter dated June 6, 1888, Knight addressed the Portland mayor and city council: "I have brought to this city and have for sale two bears, one young male brown, and a she grizzly, which latter is said to be with cub. They are gentle, easily cared for, and cost but a trifle to keep, and knowing they would prove a great source of attraction to the city park, would like an offer for them before sending elsewhere."

Instead of buying the animals, the city offered to give Knight two circus cages and allowed him to place the caged bears on the grounds of the City Park (now called Washington Park).
Care and feeding of the bears, however, still fell to the Knight family and friends. It wasn't long before Knight addressed the city council again regarding the bears. Just five months later, he offered to donate the young grizzly, along with its cage (it is unclear what happened to the second bear) to the city. Portland City Council accepted his offer on November 7, 1888.

Thus began the Portland Zoo, later to be renamed the Oregon Zoo. One can almost hear the audible sigh of relief Knight must have exhaled once the bears became city property. An ex-sailor friend of his, Charles Myers, became the first official zookeeper, but Knight's notable absence in the administration of the zoo suggests that the bears had been a responsibility, not a passion.

The bears had been two creatures in a long parade of animals that sailors often brought to Knight's drugstore in the 1870s and 80s. Sailors gave Knight gifts from their overseas travels: parakeets, monkeys, and other small animals and birds. Knight paid $75 for the grizzly and $50 for the young brown bear.

Having sailed himself, in a futile quest to find a father whom he'd never met, Knight could very well have felt a kinship with the sailors. The fact that the sailors often frequented his store near the riverfront suggests they, at least, felt a kinship with him.

Knight had been only fifteen when, with hundreds of other immigrants, he boarded a bounty ship called The Light of the Age in 1863, departing London for Sydney, Australia. (A bounty ship is a ship that carries passengers or freight.) The father he sought (at his mother's request) had gone to Australia for the gold rush in the 1840s and had never returned. Despite young Richard's efforts, as well as those of two brothers who had gone to Australia before him, the family never learned of his father's fate.

Perhaps Knight took pity on the sailors who brought the birds and other exotic pets to his shop in Portland. He himself had once had to stand waist-high in freezing sea water with other sailors to pump water from a leaking boat. Though in later years Knight would tell his daughter Edith that his experience at sea was tiring, strenuous, and dreadful, he also described sailing as full of adventure. Memories of his time aboard the Light of the Age, sailing more than nine thousand miles alone in search of a father he would never find, could very well have surfaced whenever a sailor visited him in his drug store. How could he say no to their gifts?

Zoo records suggest that collecting exotic animals was Knight's hobby. However, it seems more likely that Knight said yes for the sailors' sake, since he had no great rapport or particular skill with animals. Aside from his brief stint on the high seas, he had always worked in pharmacy: first for a chemist in England, then as a student of pharmacy in Brussels, and then joining a brother's pharmacy business in Colorado in the 1870s. Even when he and wife Marianne, whom he married in Colorado in 1874, moved to Oregon in 1882 and worked a family farm in the Willamette Valley, Knight seemed not to have much luck with animals. Daughter Edith recollected that the pigs often escaped their pens to dig in the gooseberry plants, and her father could not milk the cows because of rheumatism.

Knight had been a generous man. Raised a Quaker, he adhered to fundamental Quaker traits, which include generosity and humility. When the Knight family bought a new home nearer town and Knight opened his drugstore on Morrison Street in 1882, a general depression had hit the region and Knight was known to fill prescriptions for free for families who could not afford to pay. Surely the sailors were recipients of this generosity from time to time, and their strange gifts had been ones of gratitude.

The same year Knight donated the bears to the city, 1887, he saw the opening of the Morrison Bridge not far from his place of business. Knight likely continued with business as usual after the bears were gone, probably busier than ever now that people from the east side had easier access to town. The Steel Bridge, a railroad bridge, opened a year later, and in 1891, Portland, East Portland, and Albina consolidated into the City of Portland. Knight's drug store endured it all, including the flood of 1894, at its Morrison Street location; later, Knight moved it to Sixth between Washington and Alder, and eventually its final address stood at 402 Washington Street.

When Knight became ill in 1917 at the age of 69, dozens of customers and friends visited the ailing druggist. "I want flowers before I die, none afterward," he told them, requesting that all flowers meant for his memorial service be sent to local hospitals to cheer the sick. Knight died after battling a seven-week illness, and there were no floral arrangements at his funeral.

References
Oregon Zoo Web site, www.zooregon.org
"'Patron Saint' of Portland's Zoo Collected Animals, Birds at Drug Store Near Waterfront," The Oregonian, March 16, 1958
Portland: People, Power, and Politics, 1851-2001, by Jewel Beck Lansing, Oregon State University Press, September 2003
"R.B. Knight Dead," obituary in The Oregonian, Dec. 6, 1917
"Washington Park Zoo: A look at the first 100 years," The Oregonian, June 14, 1987
Oregon Historical Society, Knight family genealogy records:
letter from Richard B. Knight to Portland mayor and city council, dated June 6, 1888
letter from Richard B. Knight to Portland mayor and city council, dated November 6, 1888
typescript written by Edith Knight Hall
misc. other documents