Swetsville Zoo on the move to Timnath Park

By Dan MacArthur
Fossil Creek Current

The whimsical metal residents of the internationally known Swetsville Zoo likely will be migrating across Harmony Road to set up housekeeping in Timnath's new park along the Poudre River.

The first two sculptures creator Bill Swets has ever cut loose from the compound eventually may be joined by others from the nearly 180-strong menagerie should he and the town reach agreement. While both sides say one appears to be near, neither is willing to call the deal done until all legal loose ends are tied up.

As now proposed, the town will buy two sculptures of its choice and lease 100 or more for placement in the park and possibly other locations throughout the town.

If and when that agreement is reached, it would mark a literal transition in the unique and altogether enchanting roadside attraction that Swets, since 1985, has assembled with humor, imagination and scrap metal.

Located at his farm on the south side of Harmony just east of its intersection with Interstate 25, the free-admission (donations appreciated) Swetsville Zoo has welcomed visitors from across the globe. It's received national television network coverage and recently was featured in an automaker's ad.

But the fame and acclaim clearly have not gone to Swets' head, framed by a healthy crop of stubble and a well-worn give-away cap. His impish face is furrowed by character lines that nearly draw his eyes closed when he so frequently laughs with abandon.

Despite his artistic achievements, Swets is without pretense and just what he seems--a friendly, polite reformed farmer with a decidedly casual wardrobe well suited to the endless work he performs with exceptional energy and enthusiasm for a man of 66.

Located at his farm on the south side of Harmony just east of its intersection with Interstate 25, the free-admission (donations appreciated) Swetsville Zoo has welcomed visitors from across the globe. It's received national television network coverage and recently was featured in an automaker's ad.

But the fame and acclaim clearly have not gone to Swets' head, framed by a healthy crop of stubble and a well-worn give-away cap. His impish face is furrowed by character lines that nearly draw his eyes closed when he so frequently laughs with abandon.

Despite his artistic achievements, Swets is without pretense and just what he seems - a friendly, polite reformed farmer with a decidedly casual wardrobe well suited to the endless work he performs with exceptional energy and enthusiasm for a man of 66.

Swets generally stays away from the zoo grounds, leaving it to visitors to enjoy. But he delights in recalling a recent time he was mowing there while a most elegant lady was carefully scrutinizing each sculpture. She finally approached him and asked whether the artist was still alive and, if so, whether she could meet him. Yes, he replied, adding that the artist was standing before her. "Oh," she replied. "I thought you were the gardener."

The public part of the zoo starts in the yard adjacent to the castle-like home with parapets and a tower created from a fuel-storage tank. He built it for his beloved, Sandy, the high school sweetheart from Loveland he has been married to for 48 years. "I just thought you ought to have your wife in a castle," he explained.

The zoo extends east into a grove of trees bordering the Poudre. Paths wind through an eclectic collection of sculptures representing phases in Swets' works, not unlike any other artist - flowers, space ships, dinosaurs, human-like creatures and critters existing only in his imagination.

The Swetsville Gazette, available for two bits from a newspaper box at the entrance to the zoo, offers some guidance with a full page of nicknames, scientific names and comments. They clearly reflect Swets' goofy humor, subtle commentary, love of alliteration, and affection for family and friends who inspired several pieces.

There's the full-service spacecraft gas station that converts moonbeams into plasmatic nuclei for spacecraft fuel, Marty the Martian cowboysaurus, swan Monique who started life as a motorcycle gas tank, and the Swetgator - a long-legged alligator who placed first in a four-state art show.

His favorite one? The last one he built, of course.

The zoo took root following Swets' escape from the dairy farming he so disdained. "I hate farming," he said.

Still, he stuck with it for 38 years because that was the life he was born into when his father bought the farm as World War II was looming. Swets said his family, missionaries in Alaska, in part moved there to escape the expected Japanese invasion via the Aleutian Islands. Ironically, the war followed them to Colorado when one of the few Japanese incendiary balloons that made it to America detonated after hitting the ground near their farmhouse.

Swets promptly sold the dairy herd after his father died. "When that last cow went up the chute, it was like your last kids getting out of school," he chuckled.

Swets continued to grow hay and do custom cutting for others. He took the last crop off much of the farmland as it was consumed by the development that's now knocking on his door with a new Wal-Mart Supercenter soon to be within stone-throwing distance.

He started sculpting in 1985 with Buzzard George, copied from a similar piece he saw at a neighbor's place. "I come home and said, 'Shoot there ain't any trick to this,'" Swets recalled. The ensuing works became increasingly detailed, sprouting ears, horns and such.

Swets constructs his sculptures primarily with bits of farm machinery, vehicle parts and whatever he has lying around or can scavenge. "I've got an inventory, and I know pretty much what's in there, or I know somebody who's got it," he said.

As a true frugal farmer, Swets keeps everything in case it can be fixed or used for something else. His newest tractor, he notes with pride, is nearly 50 years old. "I don't get rid of anything, as you can see," he said.

The designs all come from his imagination, he said, and are never committed to paper. "It's all built in my head before I start," he explained. Similarly, Swets said the sculptures are assembled by serendipity with "just whatever seems to fit."

A man of perpetual motion, Swets' sculpting served as a form of therapy. Many, he said, were created from 2 to 6 a.m. after returning from a grim run with the volunteer fire department he formed with his brother Jack and Chuck Willis in 1967. "It was the adhesive for Timnath," Swets said. "Between it and the church it was the center of town."

As a first-responder, "I saw some not very nice stuff," he said. "Mentally that was not very nice for me. You don't soon get over that, especially when there's kids involved."

The zoo started innocently enough when he put his sculptures in the yard and motorists stopped to take a look. Swets said he sometimes wonders why he maintains the zoo, which clearly is not a profit-making proposition.

"We've been very blessed in life," he explained. "This is one of the things we put into life, and we feel like we get it and a lot more back by putting it in."

Swets admits he's getting tired - not of the sculptures but the maintenance. The creatures clearly are part of his family and he's reluctant to let any go - even the two Timnath plans to buy. He hopes to keep the zoo together but realizes changes are likely. Already, he said, the proposed widening of Harmony threatens to consume his house and much of the zoo grounds.

"The zoo will exist," he said, gesturing across the road to the town's new park site, "either here or over there."