In the 1930s the WPA built a number of small "monkey islands" at zoos across the U.S. Surrounded by a pond, the islands afforded visitors a clear view of the monkeys, which could not escape and were allowed to frolic freely. The Monkey Island at Ralph Mitchell Zoo was particularly elaborate, with a castle, a main street with storefronts, a jail, a windmill, and even a miniature Liberty Bell.
This was fertile soil, and it nurtured the first non-communist primate to travel into outer space. Her name was Miss Able, a rhesus monkey who had been born on Monkey Island, and she was strapped into an American Jupiter rocket (along with Baker, another monkey) and fired 300 miles into the thermosphere on May 28, 1959.
If the Ralph Mitchell Zoo harbored hopes of becoming the home of a space celebrity -- and maybe building a little rocket for the island -- they were quickly dashed. Miss Able returned safely to Earth, but died the next day during surgery to remove her electrodes.
Monkey Island's rhesus monkeys were eventually replaced with spider monkeys, and then capuchin monkeys. Its structures were allowed to decay. Today, all that remains of its real estate is the crumbling castle. Vegetation was added in the 1980s, which probably pleases the monkeys but isn't as much fun as a windmill.
For years the Ralph Mitchell Zoo at least had a decent sign -- of a cartoon monkey hanging out of a rocket -- telling Miss Able's story. But it was replaced in the late 1990s with a more serious one -- strictly informative.
