The animals outside and the spiders inside
were the Last Chance Saloon's big draws

Although the world-famous San Diego Zoo has been flourishing for decades, it was by no means the first such "attraction" in the city.

    Honors for this first go to one Till Burnes, who, in the 1880s, was owner and chief beverage dispenser at the Last Chance, a refreshatorium located at the foot of Fifth Avenue near the steamer wharf.

    Displayed on the wooden sidewalk in front of the saloon was Burnes' motley menagerie. On view were a mangy monkey, some guinea pigs and rabbits, a wild cat, parrots and a bear in a cage. It was hoped that passersby would stop to look at the critters, spy the swinging doors and slide in for a snort or two.

    Or for a bite of lunch. An institution in those days, the free lunch offered a hearty meal for the price of a schooner of beer - five cents. Tasty slabs of ham, baked beans, several kinds of cheese, a variety of sausages - help yourself! And if you slipped your dog a sausage or two, no one objected, even if he didn’t have the price of a beer on him.

    In imitation of a San Francisco saloon that he admired greatly, Burnes had put spiders to work on the ceiling festooning webs all over the place, making the upper saloon stratosphere a veritable cobweb palace. The owner was proud of those glittery fly-catchers and of the notice they attracted.

    One spring morning in 1886, a former police constable named Milburne exited through the swinging doors and ambled over to see his old buddy the bear. Following his custom, he put his face up to the bars for the bear to lick.

    Ordinarily the bear had no objection to this and had taken part in the ritual many times, but perhaps this time he was offended by the delicate bouquet of 40-rod rye issuing from the ex-cop's nose. So he bit most of it off - not the rye, the nose!

    Noseless Milburne's yowl of agony brought patrons tumbling out of the Last Chance to find out what had happened, but by this time the victim, severed proboscis in his hand, was pounding up Fifth Street to the office of Dr. C.C. Vallee.

    The former constable had been a handsome man and begged the physician to sew his severed schnozzola back in place, but the sawbones said it was beyond his powers. He did what he could, however, to lessen the pain and fight infection. When the wound healed, Milburn, who now had an interesting rather than a classic profile, slapped a lawsuit on Burnes.

    When the case came before the judge, that gentleman said any man ass enough to put his nose in a full-grown bear's cage deserved to have it bitten off. Case dismissed.

    The owner of the Last Chance had business interests in Baja California and, one day, found he had to make a two-week trip there at once. But there was no one to take care of the bar; no one, that is, who wouldn't either drink up or pocket the profits when he was gone.

    Then someone told him there was a reputable drink-dispenser spending his vacation at Horton House. This gentleman worked at one of San Francisco's finest alcohol academies and had a fine reputation for sobriety and cleanliness, his informant said.

    Burnes visited the resting barkeep and inveigled him into running the Last Chance while he was gone. Satisfied that his pride and joy was in good hands, Burnes took a last fond look at his cobweb-festooned ceiling, waved farewell to the steadies holding up the bar, and headed south.

    Upon his return two weeks later, he was met at the swinging doors by the interim proprietor.

    Glad to see you back, Mr. Burnes," that gentleman said. "Business has been kind of slow, so I cleaned the joint up completely. I’m sure you'll be pleased."

    Heart in throat, Burnes burst through the swinging doors and took a good look at the ceiling - clean, bright, shiny, with not a sign of a cobweb anywhere!

Turning on the puzzled San Franciscan, he snarled, "You've ruined the work of 10 years!" and

    Well, it might be kinder to draw a curtain of silence over what happened next.

Longtime newspaperman Herbert W. "Woody" Lockwood has forgotten more about San Diego history than most historians remember. Retired from daily newspaper work, he is researching a book on military food.