Collections of strange and wondrous creatures are less common today, but no less sensational – just consider the pictures of a newly discovered giant octopus or strange giant spider that crop up and circulate around the Internet every so often. In Europe of centuries past, these marvelous animals exhibits were all the rage, and a lot of that rage transferred over to the States, as the nation’s capitol in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania chartered its own zoological society.

On this day, March 21, the charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia was approved and signed on March 21, 1859. That became the basis of the oldest zoo in the United States.

Fifteen years had to pass between the charter and the zoo’s grand opening: the Civil War happened in the meantime. Finally, in July 1874 a grand opening ceremony with a brass band welcomed the visitors. More than 3,000 of them came on the first day alone, by car of tram, or even steamship, docking in the zoo’s own wharf. Each paid admission of 25 cents for and adult and 10 cents for child, a rate that held for the next 50 years.