![]() ![]() Could this possibly be an effort to confuse the public as to how many real monkeys are out there?" (Shippey begins this column with this witticism: "Pretty warm weather for December lately, but don't let it worry you. In his DecemLA Times column "Lee Side O' L.A." Lee Shippey writes: "Painful Suspicion: A lot of newspaper boys recently have received free tickets to Monkey Island, where 500 monkeys are said to be running around loose. Monkey Island's opening was delayed by a couple of months in late 1938, but there was plenty of buzz around town about it. ![]() (The Mohawk Park View Zoo in Tulsa, OK has a Monkey Island that inspired a visitor in 1938 to nickname a development in the state's Grand Lake area as "Monkey Island" and the name stuck!) It seems likely that developers of Monkey Islands were inspired by talk of Cayo Santiago, an uninhabited island in Puerto Rico which was populated by a "group of 409 monkeys imported from India that were used for scientific research in 1938," (and whose offspring still roam the island today!), and banked on the popularity of the event by creating monkey islands regular Americans could experience right here at home. Opening a theme park based on monkeys was not entirely novel, in fact, it was part of a national trend, as zoos and independent businessmen were launching "Monkey Islands" in several US cities.
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