At first, Gettysburg policemen and firemen thought the call they received around 8 p.m. on June 17, 1960, was a crank call. However, more than one person called in to report the same thing. According to the Gettysburg Times, “… residents there insisted there was a monkey swinging through the trees…”
Both the Gettysburg Police and Fire Department responded to the call, which took them out to Hillcrest Place, where they discovered that a squirrel monkey was indeed playing in the trees.
Squirrel monkeys are small, growing to roughly a foot and weighing less than three pounds. Their fur is short and usually colored black at the shoulders and yellow-orange on their back and legs. A squirrel monkey named Miss Baker had become famous the previous year as one of the first two animals launched into space by the United States and safely returned.
This particular squirrel monkey had been missing from Fantasyland for three weeks.
Kenneth and Thelma Dick opened the Gettysburg amusement park in July 1959. “This is Fantasyland…,” the brochure promised. “a world set apart… a world where stories… and dreams… of elves and fairies… and all the storybook characters come to life… in a beautiful setting with the ‘gentle look’ of long ago.” During the opening weekend, 4,500 people entered the park, and that number quickly grew to 4,800 by the third weekend. Weekdays saw 500 to 700 people a day visiting the park.
One feature of the park was a live animal show, of which the squirrel monkey named “Mitzi” had been a part.
Kenneth Dick was called and told that his monkey had been located. He contacted a local zoo for advice on how to capture Mitzi without harming her. When Dick arrived on the scene, he told the police and firemen “if the monkey couldn’t be caught, they should try stunning him with a BB gun,” according to the Gettysburg Times.
Officer Clarence Cluck borrowed a BB gun from a young boy who lived nearby, and the two of them began chasing Mitzi through the brush and trees. They shot at her with the rifle, but Mitzi made a small and fast target.
Then Raymond Fisher, Jr., the artist at Fantasyland, joined in the chase. He wore pole-climbing spikes attached to his boots so that he could climb trees if need be.
“He finally made the capture when a tired and stunned or stung “Mitzi” was caught in some brush,” the Gettysburg Times reported.
Mitzi was friendly, but “edgy.” She bit Fisher’s hand, and he had to be taken to the doctor for a tetanus shot.
Fantasyland was a popular amusement park in Gettysburg for more than 20 years.
To enter the park, you had to walk through a short door that part of a large storybook. The door was only five feet tall. If a person walked in without stooping, he or she was charged the children’s price of 60 cents. People who stooped were charged adult admission of a dollar.
The first thing a person saw walking into the park was a 23-foot-tall Mother Goose statue with her goose. A girl in the storybook office could see visitors approaching the statue and speak to them through a microphone which delighted the younger children.
Children could also talk to several different live costumed characters, such as Raggedy Ann and Andy, Little Bo Beep, the Easter Bunny, or a Fairy Princess.
The park was initially 23 acres but grew over time to 35 acres as new attractions were added. While most of the attractions had a storybook character theme like the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe or Rapunzel’s Castle, you could also visit Santa’s Village, watch a Wild West Show, take in the animal show of which Mitzi was an actor. The park featured 11 rides, four live shows, and a number of displays.
Although Fantasyland was a popular destination for children, squirrel monkeys must not have liked it too much. Two squirrel monkeys named Mitzi had escaped from the amusement in the year since it had opened. An examination of this Mitzi led Dick to believe that this monkey was the second Mitzi, which meant that the original Mitzi was still at large. She was never located.
The park’s final season was 1980.
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