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Potawatomi Zoo

Zoo in Indiana, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ7234774 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Potawatomi Zoo is a 23-acre (9.3 ha) zoological park located in South Bend, Indiana, United States. The zoo is nestled in Potawatomi Park between the St. Joseph River and the Grand Trunk railroad in the east side neighborhood of River Park. Founded in 1921, it is one of Indiana's oldest zoos. It features over 400 animals and is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The zoo has over 300,000 visitors each year.

History

In 1921, the Potawatomi Zoo was established in Potawatomi Park when a single deer was donated to the park board by Albert Russell Erskine, president back then, of the Studebaker Corporation. It is the oldest zoo in Indiana.

At the end of the Great Depression in 1940, the Works Progress Administration constructed the zoo's Cat House, its first permanent structure. The building still stands, serving as home to Amur leopards and snow leopards, and is the oldest zoo building still standing.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Potawatomi Zoo” is zoo in Indiana, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Potawatomi, Indiana and United, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1921, 1940—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Potawatomi, Indiana and United is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “zoo in Indiana, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7234774. Authority coordinates are 41.669, -86.218. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921 and 1940.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Potawatomi Zoo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Potawatomi Zoo primary sources, Potawatomi Zoo archive and Potawatomi research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Potawatomi Zoo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.