It was an ordinary day. Standing in the barn of John Byler feeding baseballs into the pitching machine that we had borrowed from the nearby high school to help keep the boys sharp for the upcoming baseball season. John's son played baseball for the same team that my son's did and we got to know each other because of our connection with baseball. John had farm with a good-sized barn and he volunteered to set up the pitching machine in the barn for the boys to stay in shape for the upcoming season. Well the season was a success and a few years later John Byler's barn was used for another rather unusual purpose. In the early 1990's, John and his wife Judy decided to buy a cougar. They had gotten the 16-month old cougar cub from a man in the Poconos who raised cougars. They then applied for and received a permit from the Pennsylvania Game Commission to keep and care for the big cat on their farm in Manheim Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. John built a cage for the cougar, named Zoe, that connected to the barn where we had practiced batting a few years before. Shortly after, Manheim Township held a meeting with the zoning officials and the Bylers and it was ruled that Zoe must go.
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| Julie Byler and Zoe the cougar |
Seems hundreds of nearby residents feared for their life if the cougar might get loose, plus the Bylers never did ask the township if it was OK to have a cougar. After a long municipal meeting, the Manheim Township zoning board ruled that the cougar must be removed from the Township. John vowed to take the township to court to keep the animal. Nearly a year later, and quite a few more pounds on Zoe, Lancaster County Judge Lawrence Stengel ruled in favor of the township and by February of 1995 the ruling of the courts prevailed and Zoe had to be relocated outside Manheim Township to a farm somewhere in Lancaster County. The beautiful beast weighed over 200 pounds by now and would be joining two other cougars on a new farm. Over the time that John and Judy had Zoe, they never put her on display as a public attraction. She was a family pet living in the outdoor area, but able to retreat back into the barn in bad weather. They treated her as one of the family. They also received hundreds of letters of support which said that many of those letter-writers had come to visit Zoe during the cougar's year and half spent as a Manheim Township resident. I made a few visits myself and enjoyed the beautiful animal, but I could see how many might fear what would happen if it would escape. Zoe was not the first large animal to call Lancaster home, since in December of 1959 a lion named George also made the local newspaper. George moved to Lancaster from Oklahoma City where he famously spent a night in a prison cell after tearing up his owners apartment. He was then moved to the nearby zoo, but was unable to stay there, as the zoo already had too many lions and couldn't handle all of them. A nationwide call went out to find George a new home and out of more than 2,100 applicants, Lawrence "Whitey" Benedict of Lancaster came out the winner.  |
| George the Lion |
George finally arrived in Lancaster from Oklahoma City. His new home was to be in a specially build cage at Benedict's Park Avenue Car Wash. He arrived on December 5, 1959 and stayed nearly a decade. George was a big draw at the car-wash. I can remember going there a few times during George's lifetime to have my car washed and spend some time with George while my car was being detailed. George was the perfect host, allowing people, young and old, to touch his nose through the bars of his cage. In 1964 George traveled to New York to star in a television commercial. George died four years later from a bout of pneumonia. He was nine years old. He weighed 412 pounds at the time of his death and was laid to rest in the Lancaster Pet Cemetery. His tomb stone tells his tale. After his death, I very seldom made my way to the carwash, since there was no reason to go. Yeah, I know, my car got clean, but so what. George was the big draw for me...as well as many others who made their way to the carwash. The tale of Zoe and George are fun to tell and hopefully as much fun to read about today. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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