The man who as a child dreamed up Wildlife World Zoo, Aquarium & Safari Park has died at 80 - The Arizona Republic

Mickey Ollson, an Arizona native who as a child dreamed up plans for the Wildlife World Zoo, Aquarium & Safari Park, has died of cancer at 80.

Ollson oversaw the zoo's rapid growth and worked on the grounds nearly every day. He also received the Zoological Association of America's Lifetime Achievement Award last year for his work in pioneering the West Valley's only zoo.

It's not yet clear who will run the zoo going forward. His family owns the zoo, which spans 100 acres and has some 6,000 animals, and will decide its future and leadership, zoo spokesperson Kristy Morcom said.

Ollson had bought the then-remote piece of land in the 1970s and operated an animal breeding farm. He converted it to the privately run Wildlife World Zoo in 1984.

The Arizona Republic spent time at the zoo with Ollson in 2019 and 2020.

To hear Ollson tell it, he always was going to run a zoo. He was born into a Phoenix home with many animals. His father and grandfather raised everything from chickens to koi. Ollson made his first money selling animals to Walt Disney World Resort.

It seems only natural that he would end up running a zoo. But he took an unconventional route getting there.

He studied business with a journalism minor at Arizona State University, and spent time playing disc jockey on the college radio station. He taught junior high school after graduating.

That wouldn't last long.

How Ollson dreamed a West Valley institution into existence 

A young Mickey Ollson hatched the idea for what would become a West Valley institution.

He was enamored with animals as a child.

"People would ask me what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday and I would say, 'anything alive,'" he'd told The Republic.

One day, when he had chickenpox and couldn't go to school, he sketched out a zoo.

It's uncanny how much it resembles the Wildlife World Zoo he would open decades later. Nearly 40 years after he opened the zoo, the sketch hangs, framed with a map of what the zoo would become, in his office.

"When I was a child growing up, there was no zoo here in Phoenix. There was a little one out in Apache Junction, and there was a small one on north Seventh Street," he said. "Gradually I started selling these people exotic birds that I raised."

After college, he took a job teaching junior high in Glendale. So he moved west — and bought several acres at 83rd and Northern avenues so he could bring his exotic birds with him.

The collection grew — he added more exotic birds.

And grew — he added zebras.

And grew — he added wallabies.

Soon, the passion outgrew his property. He started attending zoo conferences and joining zoo organizations when he wasn't teaching.

"Friends were telling me I had more animals and birds ... than most zoos and I was crazy for teaching school. I should have a zoo," he recalled.

He didn't disagree, but metro Phoenix was rapidly expanding and he needed money beyond his teacher's salary to buy enough land for a zoo.

He sold several animals to a new theme park way across the country: Walt Disney World Resort.

"They had an exhibit called Discovery Island ... and I sold them a lot of birds to open that," he recalled in 2020. "I invested the money in the first 30 acres here."

He moved his breeding operation to what was then a remote part of the West Valley in 1973. The site was "extremely rural," but the price was right.

He switched gears from a breeding farm to a full-on zoo in 1984.

Starting with a lot of animals and a lot of credit card debt

Ollson literally built the zoo from the ground up.

He framed buildings himself with a hammer and nails. He planted trees. He installed plumbing. When he couldn't afford to hire contractors for the work, he did it himself and recruited friends to help.

He recalled starting out with a shoestring budget and maxing out his credit card to buy garbage cans the day before the zoo opened.

He said he made $425 on opening day. Tickets were $4 for adults and $2 for children.

"It took a year to do some of the things that had to be done, like proper guardrails to keep people safe and away from the animals," Ollson said. "We had to have a restroom. We had to have some kind of food service. We needed a small gift shop. And I didn't have money for any of these things. So I maxed out my credit card."

Grey Stafford, who worked until 2016 as the zoo's curator of education and director of conservation, said Mickey's dedication was undeniable.

"A lot of kids think about, 'Oh wouldn't it be great to own a zoo' … he actually went out and did it," he said. "For him to have set it out as a goal and to do it mid-life after being a teacher for many years, I think it just underscores what a unique story it is ... there was no way a man like Mickey was ever going to retire."

The zoo continued to grow. In 2009, he added an indoor aquarium with stingrays, sharks and alligators. In 2016, he debuted its $4 million expansion with a Mexican restaurant and rides that include a rollercoaster and a 100-foot swing. 

Ollson also guided the zoo through the aftermath of a 2019 jaguar attack that garnered international attention.

Building something for the West Valley

Building something special for the West Valley was important to Ollson.

Phoenix and the East Valley hit their growth spurts long before the west side. But there were signs the growth was heading for his adopted neck of the woods.

Back then, he said, Loop 303 wasn't on anyone's radar. Interstate 10 didn't even run through downtown Phoenix. The unincorporated county land he owned, sandwiched between Glendale's Luke Air Force Base and Litchfield Park, felt like the end of the world.

"The West Valley's been very kind to me over the years," he said. "I moved here as a young adult after college and I fell in love with the West Valley. Not only the geography of the West Valley and the White Tank Mountains ... I love the people of the West Valley."

Stafford said Ollson built a true West Valley institution. He invested in the community by hiring West Valley natives who cared about the area.

"A lot of people who are there grew up in the West Valley. They started as teenagers on the weekends, cutting grass or picking up trash in the parking lot. Then they became keepers and exhibit creators," he said.

He also invested in the property with savvy decisions — like buying building materials for future expansions at the height of the Great Recession, when building all but stopped in metro Phoenix and prices were low.

"Long story short, it paid off."

Olson is survived by his wife, Connie; his children, Micalin, Louis, Kenny and DeShawn; eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Reach reporter Joshua Bowling at jbowling@azcentral.com or 602-444-8138. Follow him on Twitter @MrJoshuaBowling.

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