As Cheyenne Mountain Zoo turns 100, here’s a look back at some moments, people and animals that shaped the Colorado Springs institution:

1926: Animals living at The Broadmoor — among hotel visionary Spencer Penrose’s menagerie, including his beloved Tessie the elephant — begin to move up Cheyenne Mountain along the road Penrose built. The zoo gets established with black bears, mountain lions and more.

1927: Charles Tutt Jr. brings two sea lions from the San Diego Zoo to The Broadmoor’s lake, where they greet guests while their zoo home is under construction. The year also sees a monkey house built at the zoo, along with the granite-walled keep for bears still seen today.

1928: A polar bear cage is built near the center of the zoo.

1932: Llamas are rare at zoos, but Penrose by this year “was successfully breeding them and found them to be cold hardy animals,” according to an exhibit at Penrose Heritage Museum. The exhibit also details successful breeding this decade among lions and musk oxen, which had never been bred at any other zoo.

1937: The Zoo Special, a miniature railway, transports guests from the zoo entrance to the upper carousel. The next year sees another train, the Mountaineer, run from The Broadmoor to the zoo. The Zoo Special would run until 1957, while the Mountaineer continued until 1974.

1938: Shirley Temple the elephant is visited by a young movie star of the same name.

1939: Penrose dies soon after establishing the nonprofit that continues to operate the zoo. His wife, Julie, would chair the board and remain active at the zoo. Before her death in 1956, she saw the arrival of giraffes and several structures that housed felines, hippos and primates.

1951: The zoo entrance had been little more than a tollgate, but now it is defined by Thundergod Gift Shop, a building adorned with artwork detailing the Native American story of Cheyenne Mountain.

1960: An aquatics building opens for hippos, penguins and more. A Komodo dragon would be one visitor over the years.

1965: A massive flood damages exhibits and closes the zoo until the summer of 1966.

1976: The giraffe herd is counted at 27, in large credit to Pet, one of the original three that arrived in 1954. Zoo history recalls Pet as “one of the most prolific giraffes in human care,” with a great-grandcalf living at the zoo today, among several descendants across the nation and Mexico.

1988: Susan Engfer becomes the zoo’s first female president and CEO and creates the zoo’s first master plan, setting the stage for more development. Over the next decade, this would include the Conservation Center for researching and breeding endangered species; Wolf Woods for Mexican gray wolves; and Asian Highlands for today’s tigers, leopards and red panda.

2008: Rocky Mountain Wild is established to house mountain lions, moose, grizzly bears and more. Also this year, the Mountaineer Sky Ride chairlift opens.

2018: Not since the 1965 flood had the zoo endured a natural disaster like the hailstorm this year, leading to an estimated $4.5 million in damages and forcing an almost weeklong closure.

2022: The zoo announces the International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe — a $40 million initiative that will expand space for the animals. The complex is set to open this summer.