Woodland Park Zoo is a zoological garden around the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Occupying the western half of Woodland Park, the zoo began as a small menagerie on the estate of Guy C. Phinney, a Canadian-born lumber mill owner and real estate developer. Opened in 1899, the 188-acre (76 ha) Woodland Park was sold to the city for $5,000 in cash and the assumption of a $95,000 mortgage on December 28, 1899, by Phinney's wife (Phinney had died six years earlier, in 1893). The sum was so large that the Seattle mayor (W. D. Wood) vetoed the acquisition, only to be overruled by the city council.