Coxville Zoo

Coxville Zoo

By Tiffany Young Friday, 19 June 2009

Those who lived in Austin between 1946 and 1969 may remember visiting the Coxville Zoo, a privately owned zoo located on North Lamar Boulevard near Parmer Lane, formerly Dallas Highway. Alvin Cox, a man with a love of animals, brought lions and tigers and bears (oh, my) to Austin so that visitors who stopped by the Coxville Service and Grocery could visit them.

When it opened, the Coxville Zoo was about 10 miles north of Austin’s city limits. Alvin bought 56 acres of land and built a service station on it, with a small grocery store that sold soda pop, mesquite smoked sausage, ice cream, candy and other market items.

In those days, the zoo was the only one between San Antonio and Dallas, making it an attraction beyond the Austin area, with students being bused in for field trips from as far away as Waco.

Alvin slowly became a zookeeper, starting with just a pet monkey.

Alvin’s daughter Denise Cox Robinson recalled her father saying, “In 1939, I bought a monkey ... and then I decided he needed a wife,” at a booksigning she held in May in Pflugerville for her book “The Passionate Zookeeper.”

The white-faced monkey named Junior was bought for $25 and after Alvin and his wife Doris had their first daughter, Darlene, they bought her a pet monkey named Christine Churchill. Over the years, snakes, llamas, oppossums, tigers and other wild animals were added until there were more than 500 wild animals in the Cox collection.

In 1949, it was estimated that 374 pounds of meat, two barrels of bread, 100 pounds of horse and mule feed, 224 bananas, 100 pounds of hen scratch and a variety of grapes, honey, peanuts, cakes and cookies were needed to feed the animals annually. Originally the zoo was free, but the cost of feeding all their furry friends got too expensive, so they started charging 25 cents in 1960.

While most people’s visits to zoos include peering at wild animals through cages, many oldtimers can recall having played with baby lions. The Cox daughters took the lions to “show and tell” at school and also to the “Uncle Jay Show” that aired on Austin’s KTBC’s Channel 7. After that appearance, Alvin was asked to become a regular guest, showing and teaching about the animals he loved.

There was also the Coxville Lake made by a dam the family built. In some places the lake was 16-feet deep and was stocked with catfish, bream and bass. Sometimes Alvin caught fish for his family and his extended family — the animals he took care of.

The Cox family also had a rock collection that began as a dedication to Alvin’s little sister Mary Ruth, who died at age 11, called the Coxville Rock Garden, an unusual tourist attraction. Mary Ruth had collected rocks and Alvin and their mother, Bertha, began making rock sculptures out of cement that attracted visitors’ and local newspapers attention, including a miniature city. Later, tourists began mailing interesting rocks to the family to display in their garden.

Much of the land, which was sold to the city in 1969, is now the Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park.

This article is based on “The Passionate Zookeeper.”

Buy the book

Denise Cox Robinson, daughter of Alvin Cox, wrote “The Passionate Zookeeper,” a book telling the story of her family’s zoo. It can be ordered for $12.95 by contacting her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or P.O. Box 2353, Sherman, Texas 75091.