Thanks, Jim Norris, for the long loan of your booklet, autographed by author Jeffrey Wayne Maulhardt, and for your patience until the article was excerpted from its pages.
Peggy Perry
Along old Ventura Boulevard in a remote, sparsely populated portion of Ventura County — where the city of Thousand Oaks eventually grew — land was inexpensive. Here, in 1926, animal attendant Louis Goebel bought five lots at just $10 apiece as a home for his seven African lions. Usually leashed to an oak tree near the "highway," the big predators became a roadside attraction for motorists passing by.
Entrepreneur Goebel added exotic birds and other animals, and by 1929 Goebel's Lion Farm gathered regional fame. Premier woman tiger trainer Mabel Stark arrived, and Capt. Frank Phillips later trained Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's famous Leo the Lion there, after the name changed to World Jungle Compound. The park maintained Hollywood ties, renting animals and hosting scenes for dozens of movies and television shows. After name and ownership changes Jungleland became the zoo's lasting identity.
Goebel sold and regained his property three times. The enthusiastic 1955 opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, on the other side of Los Angeles, inspired big plans for the Ventura County attraction, including a monorail and a safari area where animals could be viewed in their natural habitats. But these plans fizzled and Goebel resumed ownership in 1961. Other new owners brought in Chucko the Clown, known for his days on ABC and Channel 11, for birthday parties. They built the Sky Glide tram, expanded the petting zoo and leased animals for use in movies such as Doctor Doolittle (1967).
But the valiant efforts were not enough. Too much money was required to upgrade the park to the level of competitors Disneyland, Universal Studios and Knott's Berry Farm. Then a series of tragedies stuck, including Zoltan Hargitay, Jayne Mansfield's son, being mauled by a tiger in a near-fatal incident. The owners filed for bankruptcy and returned the property to Goebel; on October 8, 1969, a public auction was held to sell off the 1800 animals, the equipment and anything else that was not bolted down.
In 1994, twenty-five years after Jungleland closed its gates, the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza was built on the same site as the park. Today visitors walk the pathways south of the theater, where children had inscribed messages in cement when the Plaza was constructed. Echoes of their laughter seem to linger in the air. But, late on a cool evening...could that possibly be the roar of a
lion?