CAPTURING CONEJO HISTORY\Filmmaker to meet Jungleland family.

Byline: R.A. Hutchinson Daily News Staff Writer

Capturing the essence of Thousand Oaks history on video has taken amateur historian Tina Carlson on two dozen forays into the early days of the Conejo Valley.

Next month her mission to preserve video footage of the area's living legends will take her to Florence, Ore., for the 90th birthday celebration of one of those early residents. Friends and family plan to gather over the weekend of Feb. 3 for the birthday of Kathy Goebel, wife of Jungleland founder Louis Goebel, who died in 1981.

"It's a good thing because I get a chance to meet with Kathy Goebel and to talk to her about Jungleland. It is a rare opportunity," Carlson said.

Carlson says she can't pass up the opportunity to spend time with Goebel, whose family's Jungleland was a revered part of Thousand Oaks from 1926 until it closed in 1969. The Civic Arts Plaza now stands at the former home of Jungleland.

"I want to talk to her because she was Louie's wife and he was a bigger-than-life person," Carlson said. "I would like to get a better sense of the man. I want to get a better history of Jungleland. Everyone has a different story."

In the past three years, Carlson said, she has recorded more than 25 videotapes of early Thousand Oaks residents. The Conejo Valley Oral History Project is being sponsored by the Thousand Oaks Library Foundation. The information eventually will be archived and accessible to the public through the library.

"This has taken me through the early history of the Conejo Valley and some of Ventura County. I started with people who came here in 1920, 1930 and 1940," she said. "I want to get an idea of the history of the Conejo Valley through the eyes of the people who were first here. When these people are gone, those memories are lost forever."

That's one of the reasons Richard and Shirley McGraw want to make the trip north as well. The couple, who moved from Thousand Oaks 10 years ago to the Delta area of Northern California, were closely acquainted with the Goebels and with Jungleland.

"I don't feel like there are many of those people left. I was born and raised in the Conejo Valley and lived next door to Jungleland for many years," Shirley McGraw said. "My mother even worked a little bit for Louie."

So did her husband. When Richard McGraw got out of the Navy about 1949, Shirley McGraw said, he came to Thousand Oaks to learn animal training from the experts at Jungleland.

"He had always wanted to learn the animal training trade," Shirley McGraw said. "He worked for Louie right up until about the time he died."

Louis Goebel first brought wild animals to Thousand Oaks in 1925 when he acquired five lions from Universal Studios. He had worked cleaning out the stables for the studio's collection of performing animals and jumped on the chance to buy the animals when Universal decided to close its zoo.

Goebel then spent $50 to buy five lots along Ventura Boulevard in Thousand Oaks on what eventually became Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

In 1926, betting he could rent his animals to movie studios, Goebel opened Goebel's Lion Farm with his five lions and seven malamute dogs. The farm-turned-zoo grew to include giraffes, hippos, camels, tigers, monkeys, seals, gorillas and other exotic animals that appeared in shows with world-famous animal trainers.