1908–15: Establishing a medical practice Wegefarth left Baltimore in 1908, heading west in search of a place in which to open his own medical practice. Ralph Granger, the building's owner, had become a millionaire by
staking two German miners who discovered the "Last Chance" silver mine near
Creede, Colorado in 1890; moving to San Diego in 1892, he bought and became vice president of the Merchants National Bank and built the Granger Building, with the bank occupying the ground floor. Wegefarth married Granger's daughter Rachel on November 14, 1913; he was 31 years old, she 20. Around this time Harry changed the spelling of his family name to Wegeforth. During his first few months in San Diego, Wegeforth was often called upon by Sheriff Fred M. Jennings to treat prisoners at the county jail (Jennings' daughter,
Belle Benchley, would later work under Wegeforth as Executive Secretary of the San Diego Zoo). Wegeforth's sister Emma soon moved to San Diego and became his housekeeper and medical secretary. Feeling that mayor
James E. Wadham and the
San Diego City Council did not back these attempted reforms, he criticized them in newspapers and was promptly fired. Harry also served on the Exposition's
board of directors, and had the idea to start a
zoo using exotic animal exhibits that would be left over following the Exhibition's closure. Hearing the roaring of
lions from one of the Exposition's exhibits, Harry remarked to his brother "Wouldn't it be splendid if San Diego had a zoo! You know ... I think I'll start one." Joined by naturalist Frank Stephens and doctors
Fred Baker and
Joseph Cheesman Thompson, they held the first organizational meeting of the Zoological Society of San Diego on October 2, 1916 in the Wegeforths' offices; Harry served as the founding president, Paul as secretary. The
Articles of Incorporation and
by-laws for the Society were executed on December 11, 1916. The
San Diego Zoo began as a long row of cages along Park Boulevard, described by Wegeforth as "little more than Menagerie Row", featuring lions,
bears,
ducks,
lynxes,
golden eagles,
rails, a
badger, a
gray fox, a
coyote, a
whip snake, a white
goose, and groups of
buffalo,
deer, and
elk. Most of these animals had been rented for the Exhibition from a
menagerie at the
Wonderland Amusement Park in nearby
Ocean Beach, which had since gone out of business; others were scattered in various exhibits throughout Balboa Park and turned over to the fledgling zoo by the Park Department, while some were donated to the Society or acquired through trade. To feed the collection, Wegeforth himself went along the San Diego waterfront asking fishermen to donate fish, traveled to outlying ranches to convince farmers to donate hay, and collected second-grade fruits and vegetables from produce markets. Upon
American entry into World War I in mid-1917, Paul Wegeforth resigned from the Zoological Society's Board of Directors to accept a commission in the
United States Army. The Society faced financial challenges in maintaining its growing animal collection and had run out of funds by October 1917, so Wegeforth organized a
track and field meet between the
Navy and
Marine Corps, generating enough revenue from ticket sales to maintain the Society through the end of the year. Negotiating with the Balboa Park Commission for a permanent location for the zoo, in 1918 he agreed to an arrangement in which the City of San Diego would legally own all of the zoo's animals, equipment, and property, but the Zoological Society would have exclusive jurisdiction over and management of them. Reapplying to the
Army Medical Corps, Wegeforth was commissioned as a
captain in July 1918 and assigned to the
Neuro-Surgical Institute of New York for training. He resigned from the Zoological Society's Board of Directors and was replaced as president by Joseph Sefton, Jr.
1923–41: Continued zoo work and founding of hospital-clinic As the zoo grew, so did the demands of Wegeforth's medical practice. He spent many weekends and vacations at the zoo, and would also spend his lunch breaks there, dictating letters and conferring with the small staff. In 1927, after several other equally short-lived zoo directors, Wegeforth appointed the zoo's bookkeeper,
Belle Benchley, to the top position in the zoo, that of executive secretary. He soon realized that she was functioning as the zoo's director so he gave her that title. For the next 15 years the two of them worked together to transform the zoo from a small collection of animals to an innovative, world-class zoo. He and Neil Morgan co-wrote a history of the San Diego Zoo called
It Began With a ROAR! Wegeforth continued to serve as president and chief promoter of the zoo until he died of a heart attack in his home on June 25, 1941 ==Other civic activities==