Frequent readers of Houston Zoo blogs are familiar with the Zoo’s annual Gift of Grub campaign.  Generously supported by TXU Energy, the campaign each year raises funds to support the Zoo’s animal nutrition.  You can find out more about this year’s Gift of Grub campaign, TXU Energy’s $50,000 dollar-for-dollar match, and what it takes to feed the Zoo’s 6,000 animals 365 days a year here.

For this Zoo History Blog post we’ll turn back the clock more than 50 years to an article from the Houston Post written by Clyde LaMotte with photos by Caroline Valenta.

Then the Zoo was home to approximately 800 animals and the the monthly ‘grocery bill’ was around $1,300.  The monthly menu as reported by the Post included 2600 loaves of bread, 500 pounds of carrots, 600 pounds of yams, 200 pounds of cabage, 100 pounds of onions, 14 boxes of apples, 6 boxes of oranges, 16 dozen heads of lettuce, 14 stalks of bananas, 8 dozen cans of milk, 5 tons of hay, and 6,500 pounds of meat.

While the Post didn’t present the complete menu (the Zoo had sea lions then but the story doesn’t mention fish or squid), the figures no doubt turned some heads in its day. Of course, the amounts and costs pale in comparison to today’s annual menu which includes 40,000 pounds of meat, 26,000 pounds of fish, and 6,950 cases of lettuce among many other items. The monthly cost now? In excess of $59,000.  No surprise, actually.  Fifty years ago Caroline Valenta and Clyde LaMotte could visit Minimax or Henke & Pillot and pick up a 2 pound roast for around $1.50 and a half-gallon of milk for $.44.  But the average weekly salary then was around $62 and the cost of food as a percent of weekly income was slightly under 16% by one estimation.

Before we close, a little bit of background about Clyde LaMotte and Caroline Valenta.  At the Post, LaMotte was sports editor and assistant city editor and worked for the Houston Chronicle before World War II.  LaMotte went on to specialize in energy and environmental reporting, was Washington bureau chief for the Oil & Gas Journal and president of the National Press Club in 1975.

Caroline Valenta was an award winning photographer at the Post. A blog post by the Houston Chronicle’s J. D. Gonzales tells her story better than anybody and recounts her experience covering the Texas City Disaster of 1947.

Next time, we’ll take a look at what Houstonians put on their dinner tables in the mid 1920s.  What was the big treat then?

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