Jerry the smoking St. Louis orangutan
01/20/2017
(Several links restored on July 17, 2018)
St. Louis still celebrates some of the long-ago residents of its famous zoo. Phil the gorilla. Mr. Moke the chimp. Moby Dick the sea elephant. Siegfried the walrus.
But not Jerry.
This much-photographed orangutan showed up in newspapers across the nation in the 1940s — and even scored appearances in Life magazine and in at least one newsreel.
Today, though, Jerry seems to have been forgotten.
I became curious about Jerry when I spotted an old postcard that showed him in uniform, smoking a cigarette. I made a few inquiries and checked archives.
Here is what I learned. Read more of this post
Roland Klose 