Local Icon Bobo Featured in AHS Rock Documentary - Anacortes Magazine - Art, Music, and Community

Local Icon Bobo Featured in AHS Rock Documentary

Anacortes Museum staff assisted these students with research on Bobo and Anacortes history, also providing the photos and movies for this great short documentary film.

Bobo, a gorilla living as a family member of the Lowman family with Ray Lowman at home, 1510-8th Street, Anacortes.

Bobo the Gorilla. Bobo was born in 1951 and acquired by the Lowman family soon afterward, he came home to Anacortes in December 1951. It is interesting to note that Bill Lowman’s grandfather, acquired a monkey c.1905 and brought it to Anacortes: perhaps that early experience predisposed the Lowmans to taking on a gorilla.

December 1953 the Lowmans gave Bobo to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle where he lived until his death on February 22, 1968. Bobo was a huge attraction at the zoo, as was his supposed mate, Fifi. For good footage of Bobo at the Lowman home, see the channel 9 production, “Things That Aren’t Here anymore” in the museum collection.

An article in the ANACORTES AMERICAN, July 21, 1952, read: “Bobo the gorilla, the recent addition to the Ray Lowman family is proving popular with locals. Too popular. The family has decided that to ensure that the infant gorilla gets proper rest and feeding, and that the family also has a moment to itself, visits will be limited to 1:30 to 4:30 and 7:00 to 8:00.”

 

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