Two gorillas, one city, and a story Milwaukee never forgot

Sambo and Samson, Washington Park Zoo, May 1951 — two baby gorillas barely six months into their new Milwaukee life, already at home in the grass. · Photo: Henry F. Larson / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM · STORIES FROM THE COLLECTION

Samson and Sambo arrived together as tiny orphans from the African wild. One would become the most famous animal in Milwaukee history. The other would leave just as quietly as he came. But neither one ever really left.

On the morning of October 15, 1950, more than 32,000 people showed up to Washington Park Zoo in Milwaukee. They had come to see two baby gorillas — each barely a year old, each weighing around 13 pounds — who had traveled from the forests of what is now Cameroon, across the Atlantic, through the hands of dealers and zoo directors, and finally into a city that was ready to love them completely. The gorillas had no way of knowing any of that. They were just two small creatures, wide-eyed in a new world, clinging to each other in an enclosure that had been built for chimpanzees. Their names, settled by public contest a few months later, were Samson and Sambo. And from that first October morning, Milwaukee was theirs.

32,000

people showed up the day they arrived

$10,000

donated by Pabst Brewing Co. to bring them home

652 lbs

Samson's peak weight, heaviest gorilla in captivity

31 years

Samson's life at the Milwaukee zoo

WHERE IT BEGAN

From Cameroon to Wisconsin, by way of Pabst

The story starts, improbably, with a brewery. The Pabst Brewing Company donated $10,000 — nearly $100,000 in today's money — to purchase and transport two infant western lowland gorillas to Milwaukee. Zoo director George Speidel traveled to New York to select them personally from a group held by Henry Trefflich, a German immigrant who had spent four decades supplying animals to zoos and research institutions across the country. Trefflich had earned the nickname "Monkey King of America" after placing more than 1.5 million primates. He had also sold Cheetah, the famous chimpanzee from the Tarzan films. He knew his animals. The two babies Speidel chose were healthy, small, and full of life. When they arrived in Milwaukee, the city was one of only nine in the country to have gorillas at all. That alone made them extraordinary. But what nobody could have predicted — not Pabst, not Speidel, not the 32,000 people who cheered their arrival — was just how deep into Milwaukee's heart these two animals would go, and how long they would stay there.

Samson and Sambo with their handler, Edith Scott, during an outing at Washington Park Zoo, June 1951. Just months after their arrival, Milwaukee was already smitten — as the crowd behind the fence makes clear. · Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

NINE YEARS TOGETHER

Brothers in every sense that mattered

For nine years, Samson and Sambo grew up together at Washington Park Zoo. Gorillas have long childhoods, not entirely unlike humans — playful and social and deeply attached to the creatures around them. The two babies who had arrived clinging to each other in a strange new enclosure became young adults side by side, watched by generation after generation of Milwaukeeans who came back again and again not because there was anything new to see, but because seeing them had become something they simply needed to do. The city's affection was immediate and total. Within months of their arrival, Schuster's department store was selling Sambo and Samson toys in time for Christmas. Children pressed their faces to the glass. Parents who had visited as kids would return years later with their own children. The two gorillas became fixtures of Milwaukee life in the way that only the genuinely beloved can — not as novelties or attractions, but as neighbors. As family, almost. In 1959, the animals at Washington Park Zoo were relocated to the brand-new Milwaukee County Zoo on Bluemound Road in Wauwatosa — a sprawling 190-acre facility built to represent a new era of animal care. Samson and Sambo were among the very first animals moved. Their new enclosure featured smooth tiled surfaces and thick plexiglass viewing walls, designed specifically to shield the gorillas from airborne illnesses that human visitors might unknowingly carry. It was considered state of the art. It was built, in part, with them in mind. It was not enough. One month after the move, Sambo died of tuberculosis. The disease had already taken hold before the plexiglass could do its work. He was approximately ten years old. Samson was alone.

THE LEGEND BEGINS

A silverback, a glass wall, and a city that kept showing up

Samson at the Milwaukee County Zoo, unbothered as ever while a packed crowd presses to the glass. On days like this, dozens of visitors watched him every single minute the zoo was open. · Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Library Historic Photo Collection

What happened next is the part of the story most Milwaukeeans know, or think they know. Samson grew. And grew. By 1971, he had reached 652 pounds, making him the heaviest gorilla in captivity anywhere on earth. He stood over six feet tall when upright. He was, by any measure, an astonishing physical presence — and he knew how to use it. Samson's signature move became the stuff of Milwaukee legend. He would rise from the back of his enclosure, charge across the tiled floor, and hit the thick plexiglass viewing wall with everything he had. The glass shook. Crowds recoiled in fright and delight, scattering backward before drifting right back to the front, unable to stay away. Over the years, he cracked the glass four times — though zoo director George Speidel attributed at least one of those incidents to building settling rather than Samson's force, a detail that the legend has largely chosen to ignore. He appeared on local television. He was featured in publications ranging from International Wildlife to the National Enquirer. He appeared on a Milwaukee city bus pass. In a 1978 Milwaukee Journal street poll, Samson finished ahead of nearly every local and state elected official in name recognition. He was, without question, the most famous living resident of the city of Milwaukee.

"He was someone with whom everyone could feel a connection. When you looked into Samson's eyes, you wondered what he was thinking. You wondered if you made a connection with him. He was an enigma." — Timothy McMahon, Associate Professor of History, who visited Samson as a boy growing up in Wauwatosa

THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH

What the glass-pounding really meant

Sam LaMalfa became Samson's primary caregiver in 1973 and remained at his side until Samson's death in 1981. He knew the gorilla as few people did — not the legend, not the spectacle, but the actual animal who lived behind the glass every day. And LaMalfa had a different read on those famous charges than the crowds who flinched and laughed. It was not anger, LaMalfa said. It was loneliness. "He was alone, without other gorillas, so he used the public in lieu of gorillas." The pounding on the glass was not a threat. It was an attempt to connect — to reach through the only barrier that stood between Samson and the creatures who kept showing up to stare at him. In a strange, sideways way, Samson and the crowds of Milwaukee had developed something real. They needed each other. His diet had its own complicated history. In his early years, Samson's love of sweets was famously indulged — marshmallows were a particular favorite, and the treats that visitors and staff offered him contributed to a frame that ballooned far beyond what was healthy. He ate a daily loaf of bread. When LaMalfa became his keeper, he gradually cut that loaf in half, a slow and careful intervention in a life that had been shaped as much by human habits as by the animal's own nature.

Sam LaMalfa and Samson, face to face. LaMalfa was Samson's primary caregiver from 1973 until Samson's death in 1981 — and knew him better than almost anyone. · Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In 1975, the zoo introduced a female gorilla named Terra, with hopes the two might mate. Samson was largely indifferent. He had spent sixteen years alone, imprinted on humans during his most socially formative years. He seemed, by all accounts, to simply prefer people. Terra was eventually transferred to Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, where she became pregnant almost immediately with a gorilla named Frank. Samson returned to his solitude. He would live that way until the end.

THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING, 1981

Milwaukee said goodbye

On November 27, 1981 — the day after Thanksgiving — Samson collapsed in front of visitors while feeding. He was 32 years old. Veterinarians rushed to revive him, but he was gone. A necropsy later revealed the cause of death was a massive heart attack — and that he had silently suffered five previous cardiac events that had gone entirely undetected. His heart had been failing quietly for years while he charged the glass and peeled bananas one by one and stared back at the thousands of faces that stared in at him every day. Milwaukee grieved. There is no other word for it. Samson had been part of the city's life for more than three decades — present for the childhoods of people who now had grandchildren of their own. He had outlasted mayors and trends and entire chapters of the city's history. Losing him felt, to many, like losing a piece of what Milwaukee was.

Samson, Milwaukee County Zoo, 1950–1981. · Photo: OnMilwaukee

WHERE THEY ARE NOW

Still in Milwaukee. Both of them.

After Samson's death, his body was sent to a taxidermist in Waukesha while the zoo pursued a fundraising effort to have him preserved. The effort stalled, and Samson spent years in storage — long enough that his pelt suffered significant freezer damage and traditional taxidermy became impossible. He was eventually transferred to the Milwaukee Public Museum, where taxidermist and artist Wendy Christensen spent over a year building him back from scratch: a full, scientifically accurate recreation, every individual hair placed by hand, his posture and expression drawn from photographs and measurements and a plaster cast of his actual skeleton. The result won three top awards at the 2009 World Taxidermy Championships, including Best in World Re-Creation and Judges' Choice Best of Show. It greets visitors on the first floor of the Milwaukee Public Museum today — Samson, calm and authoritative, exactly the way LaMalfa remembered him. Sambo is on the third floor. His body, unlike Samson's, was intact enough for traditional taxidermy after his death in 1959, and he has been preserved and on display at the museum ever since. The pose is a little stiff, as mounted animals sometimes are. He does not stop you at the door. Most visitors never find him. But he is there. Both brothers are in the same building — Samson on the first floor, beloved and recreated with extraordinary care; Sambo on the third floor, preserved exactly as he was, waiting quietly to be remembered. They arrived in Milwaukee together on a cool October morning in 1950, greeted by 32,000 people who had no idea what was beginning. In a way, they are still here together. The museum holds them both.

"That's the Samson I remember." — Sam LaMalfa, Samson's caregiver, upon seeing Wendy Christensen's recreation at the Milwaukee Public Museum

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Samson's recreation is on permanent display on the first floor of the Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 W. Wells Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Sambo can be found on the third floor. Sources for this piece include the Milwaukee Public Library, Milwaukee Magazine, the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, the Marquette Wire, OnMilwaukee, Radio Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee Public Museum's own exhibition documentation.

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Sources & Citations

"Milwaukee's Menagerie: Samson the Gorilla"Milwaukee Public Library Blogmpl.org/blog/now/milwaukee-s-menagerie-samson-the-gorillaUsed for: Pabst purchase, 32,000-person crowd, Sambo's TB death, Sambo's mount on MPM third floor, LaMalfa quotes on glass-pounding

"Samson the Gorilla is Milwaukee's Prime Mate"Marquette Wire · February 2022marquettewire.org/4069459/ae/samson-the-gorilla-is-milwaukees-prime-mateUsed for: Henry Trefflich background, Washington Park Zoo years, Sambo's TB death, Mary Kazmierczak quote

"Who Was Samson, the Milwaukee County Zoo's Beloved Gorilla?"Milwaukee Magazine · November 2025milwaukeemag.com/who-was-samson-the-milwaukee-county-zoos-beloved-gorillaUsed for: New enclosure details, Sambo's death timing, 1978 name recognition poll, Samson's death on Nov. 27 1981, Terra and Frank details

"Questions, Suspicions Remain Decades After Iconic Samson's Death"OnMilwaukee · November 2012onmilwaukee.com/articles/samsontheapeUsed for: LaMalfa caregiver quotes, Sambo's death one month after move, Samson's freezer damage, Sambo's successful taxidermy mount

"Hide Times"Milwaukee Magazinemilwaukeemag.com/hidetimesUsed for: Marshmallow diet detail, freezer burn and taxidermy reconstruction process, Wendy Christensen-Senk quotes

"Samson" — Permanent Exhibit PageMilwaukee Public Museummpm.edu/exhibitions/permanent-exhibits/first-floor-exhibits/samsonUsed for: Wendy Christensen recreation details, 2009 World Taxidermy Championship awards

"Milwaukee County Zoo"Encyclopedia of Milwaukee · University of Wisconsin–Milwaukeeemke.uwm.edu/entry/milwaukee-county-zooUsed for: Arrival dates, 32,000 attendance figure, glass-cracking incidents, Samson's death in 1981

"How Samson the Gorilla Made Milwaukee Proud Years After Death"Radio Milwaukee · March 2017radiomilwaukee.org/stories/uniquely-milwaukee/2017-03-07/samson-mpmUsed for: Wendy Christensen recreation process, individual hair placement detail

"Samson (gorilla)"Grokipedia · January 2026grokipedia.com/page/Samson_(gorilla)Used for: Glass-cracking incidents and zoo director's attribution, isolation behavioral details, TB death timeline

"Samson (gorilla)"Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_(gorilla)Used for: General corroboration of dates, weight, Pabst donation, glass incidents