Alex the Bear

Three Bears at Kirby Park Zoo. March 18, 1936, Flood
FCP Collection

KIRBY PARK ZOO

There are too few accounts of the creation of the Kirby Park Zoo. Kirby Park was the gift of chain-store magnate Fred Morgan Kirby (1861-1940) to the city of Wilkes-Barre. Kirby Park informally operated in 1921-24. With a large financial investment by F.M. Kirby the park was rebuilt and formally opened on June 4, 1924.

The park is Wilkes-Barre city property. Accounts generally state the zoo opened in 1932, but in fact, it's origin dates back to early March 1926 when an eight-month old black bear was acquired by the city and placed in a fenced area in Kirby Park near the river. It was named Tommy, likely after city park supervisor Thomas Phillips.

A second bear cub was added to the park zoo in early March 1928. It escaped a few days later, swam across the Susquehanna River, and was cornered at S. River and Northampton streets and returned to the park. Over time, numerous animals, goats, deer and monkeys were added. Two buffalo were added to the park in 1932, a gift of the Trexler Reserve, an Allentown zoo. A new concrete bear den, to then house three bears, and other park improvements were made in 1932, which likely gives rise to 1932 as the zoo's commonly believed creation year.

Alex is not clearly documented in 1937-1939. In the spring 1937 Alex was an attraction at a West Nanticoke fruit stand. Later, Emory Newell was able to transfer Alex permanently to the Kirby Park Zoo.

By 1940 Wilkes-Barre city council had decided to largely close the zoo. There were issues with costs to maintain the zoo. Some animals died as did the buffalo. Animal rescue measures were necessary during Spring flooding in both 1936 and 1940. Some specimens were drowned. Construction of the city's levee system, authorized by federal and other governmental officials, would split the park in half and hundreds of disrupted rats congregated in the zoo area. They were rooted out by poisonous gas and escaping rats manually clubbed to death. The city council decided it would no longer house its remaining bears, Alex and an unnamed bear, and the city would maintain only monkeys at the zoo, in the bear cage. Alex and the second bear were sold by the city to the Luzerne County Humane Society for $25.00. The Humane Society planned to release the two bears in the Blakeslee area.

Pennsylvania Game Commission wardens raised concern that the bears were acclimated to being fed by humans and likely would raid inhabited areas seeking food.

The Game Commission was correct as the Wilkes-Barre Record noted on May 9, 1940:

Alex the Bear Refuses to Disappear in Woods

Alex, that pesky bear that made the headlines when a mere cub at a roadside stand attraction at Alderson five years ago and has been demanding and getting attention ever since, bobbed up again yesterday along the Blakeslee-White Haven road, much to the annoyance of officials of Luzerne County Humane Association who freed him in that area Tuesday morning, thinking he would pass into oblivion with other black bear of the Poconos. Alex, however, refused to do a disappearing act and returned to the road, receiving food and drink from autoists.

This morning Dr. Emery Lutes, veterinarian, and Rev. Carl J. Schindler, president of the Humane Association, will go to the vicinity of Oscar Dotter's along the Pinchot Trail, five miles from White Haven, determined to trap Alex, pack him back into the cage in which he was transported Tuesday and send him to a place where he will stay put. Location of that place was not revealed but Rev. Schindler said last night that the peculiarly pesky bruin will be turned over to a sports club which owns a game preserve "some distance some Wyoming Valley."

Park Employees Skeptical

Kirby Park employees last night ventured the opinion that the Humane Association officials will need plenty of help this morning getting Alex back into the cage - granting that they are able to find him near the road where he was seen yesterday playfully accepting fruit, food and drink from nearby residents and motorists.

"That Alex is a bad bear when he's mad and when we were crating him up Tuesday morning, he smashed several boards as fast as they were placed on top of the crate" a park employee said last night.

Dr. Lutes and Rev. Mr. Schindler reported that the other black bear taken from Kirby Park Tuesday morning disappeared into the woods back of the road within a few minutes and nothing has been seen of him since. Alex, they opined, had enjoyed freedom and had been the center of attention longer than his companion and when liberated well back from the Pinchot Trail beyond Blakeslee, merely ambled around, looked the terrain over and started nibbling at bushes and trees.

Finds "Pickings" Good

He made his way back to the road near Dotter's after the Humane Association agents and helpers had departed, discovered the "pickings" were good around the neighborhood and decided to stay there, being well fed by curious passerbys all day yesterday.

Humane Association agents said last night that the 400-pound bear was well fed before being removed from Kirby Park Tuesday and doubted reports that Alex was forced by hunger to return from the woods to civilization. Dr. Lutes, notified yesterday that the bear had made his appearance again, drove there and told residents that a cage will be taken out today and Alex will be shipped to a permanent home and will not return.

Reporters who have been investigating and writing about the bear for five years, however, raise their eyebrows at the prediction and knowing Alex, reply: "Wanna bet?"

Emory Newell made the following comments to the Wilkes-Barre Record on May 10, 1940, which offered a reward for a photo of Alex "chiseling a handout" from a motorist:

Alex Only Ornery Scalawag Who Won't Work, Says His Pal Emory

Alex is just an ornery, old wacalawag and "he won't go out an' pick his livin' like any other self-respecting bear." Leastways, that's what Emory Newell of Noxen says - and nobody knows Alex like the same Emory, who once tried to make him a vaudeville star.

Just now the ambling hulk, known as Alex, is cavorting along the Pinchot Trail, chiseling handouts from motorists and fisherman while his liberators, members of the Luzerne County Humane Association, seek to recapture him.

He was released a few days ago from Kirby Park Zoo, where the rats were even beginning to outnumber the other various types of smaller vermin.

Emory was dead against the plan to send Alex back to primitive foraging, but only last night did his thoughts on the matter become public.

"Won't Make Own Living"

"I know that guy," said Emory. "He just won't go out an' make his own livin'."

"He got away from me once. We thought he'd go out in the woods. Well, I went out to the barn, an' there he was"!

Alex's tragedy, Emory explained, goes back to New Jersey, where he was born in captivity - and with a silver spoon in his mouth, so to speak.

He learned a lot of bad habits in a life along the roadside, growing up to be a spoiled brat with a taste for everything from watermelons to plug tobacco and bottled beer.

Emory tried to train Alex for the stage, but Alex proved too ornery. He refused to cooperate unless he was stuffed with an odd assortment of food, and even then he would go about cuffing wrestling mates and proving himself generally obnoxious.

Emory was devoted, but Alex was impossible, so he wound up in Kirby Park Zoo, where he continued to live up to his cantankerous reputation.

"He's just full of the old Harry," Emory said on many occasions, "and it seems like he won't get over it."

Pace Tires Lutes

Dr. Emory Lutes of the Humane Association is now getting tired of it all.

"I didn't see Alex, I don't want to see him and I'm getting tired of it all," the veterinarian admitted wearily.

"So many people have called up about him that I'm worn out with it all. If I knew where he was, I'd get him."

Dr. Lutes, who oddly enough bears the same surname as Alex's one-time owner from Noxen, explains the animal's release this way:

"He's on parole, let's put it that way. If he doesn't behave, we'll have to do something about it. If he annoys anyone, I'll go out and trap him. If he doesn't annoy anyone, then he's a free bear."

Emory Newell says he will help the humane association trap Alex whenever they're ready.

But before the Humane Association could recapture Alex, the inevitable happened, as reported in the Wilkes-Barre Record on May 18, 1940:

Alex Killed by Woman When He Invades Her Home

Alex is dead!

The miscreant moocher, plugged with shot and shell, turned up his heels yesterday morning at 11 in Luke Kessler's farmyard on Plank Road, near Thornhurst.

Helen Kessler, 23, a mighty frightened daughter of Luke, filled him with bird shot and the hired man, Edwards Kinney, finished him off in what everyone, including the authorities, agrees was a justified killing.

For Alex turned out to be a peeping Tom - just another offense added to the long list for which he became famous.

Jay C. Gilford of Forty Fort, district game warden, breathed easier last night as he pronounced Alex dead and prepared to issue a certification of death "by natural causes."

Alex's ending makes a gay story, but withal a sad one.

Saw Bear in Mirror

Percy Bailer, a Gouldsboro garageman, got a first- hand account of the events leading up to Alex's end and he told it last night in these words:

"The way I get it, the Kessler girl was alone in the house about 10:30 and was combing her hair in the kitchen.

"She looked in the mirror and there was a bear peering through the window and weaving back and forth as though he wanted to share the mirror.

"She got mighty scared and dashed into the next room, looked out the window and there was the bear! She went into another room and looked out the window and there he was again!

Alex Enters Cellar

"Pretty soon he got into the cellar and she heard him rooting around, so she tried to scare him by jumping up and down on the floor.

"She chased him out, all right, and a little while later the bear parked himself under a pear tree. All along she thought it was a wild bear, but she decided after a while he was tame, so she got her camera to take some pictures.

"By the time she was ready, the bear came ambling towards the house and tried to claw his way through a screen door on the back porch.

"That was enough for her, so she ran upstairs and found a shotgun and some shells. The shells wouldn't fit, so she looked around and got another gun. It was the first time she had a gun in her hands, let alone fire one.

"She gave him a load of shot and then fired three more. All the time she was screaming and she screamed so loud the hired man a half mile away heard her. He came running and got another gun to put the finishing touches to the bear."

So ends Alex, the orneriest animal who ever walked on four legs - or begged on two.

His livelihood in his last days was made by panhandling motorists, fishermen and farmers from Blakeslee to Thornhurst.

He was released two weeks ago from Kirby Park Zoo by Luzerne County Humane Associations. The release was over the objections of the State Game Commission, officials of which repeatedly warned against turning him back to the natural habitat, said Mr. Gilford.

Alex was born in captivity in New Jersey and came from there to Alderson, where Squire Ralph Davis kept him for several years. His next owner was the redoubtable Emory Newell of Noxen who failed to make him a vaudeville hit but did put him in the public eye. He stayed awhile in a cage at a roadside restaurant in West Nanticoke and from there was incarcerated in the Kirby Park Zoo where he earned the reputation of a killer.

Councilman William B. Houser grabbed at the Humane Association's offer to buy the bear and free him in the name of man's humanity to man.

Alex was impossible, it seems, in all his surroundings so his demise comes as a sort of blessing to many, including Dr. Emory Lutes, city veterinarian.

His escapades in that period made headlines in many newspapers, including this one, and many people who did not know Alex expressed doubt that an animal could do such things.

Wilkes-Barre newspapers have been "covering" Alex now for four years, and all who have are ready and willing to stake a reputation that Alex was no ordinary mammal albeit he was ornery and he did do the things credited to him.

The bullet-ridden carcass of Alex was en-route back from Kessler farm last night in charge of two game wardens, Gilbert Bowman and Richard Orr.

To that District Warden Gilford said amen, for he worried during the interim of Alex's short freedom for fear he would attack and maim some unsuspecting visitor who might offer him a tidbit.

What will happened to the hulking hide that covered some 400 pounds of Alex remained another story late last night - but the newspapermen hope he will get a proper niche or burial place in the civilization which puzzled him and made him the obnoxious "critter" he was.

Alex's partner at the zoo, the unnamed bear, was also shot, apparently by game wardens.

The death of Alex was reported in newspapers across Pennsylvania and in news accounts in at least seventeen other states, as far west as Washington and Texas, and as far south as Mississippi and Louisiana.

Numerous accounts state the Kirby Park Zoo closed after a Spring 1940 flood in the Wyoming Valley - or closed during World War II. In fact, the city maintained the monkey cages at the zoo as its only attraction until mid-February 1946 when the zoo's ten monkeys were sent to the Nay Aug Park Zoo in Scranton.

On May 29, 1951, the concrete bear cage at the park was dynamited to clear it away. Twenty-years later, on July 24, 1971, the foundations of the bear cage were bulldozed out.

 

Editor: Many Thanks! to Jack Davis, Harveys Lake, grandson of Squire Ralph Austin Davis, for family photographs of Alex the Bear to make this article possible, and for additional assistance from Bruce Hanson.

 

© Copyright April 2020 F. Charles Petrillo