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When I was 5 years old in 1965 I attended a kindergarten on the corner of Fort Road across from the hotel on 66 st. One of our field trips I think was to this Palm Ice cream facility. I recall being amazed by the amount of ice cream, cottage cheese and milk everywhere. Thought I was in kid heaven. Of course they gave us samples. 😁

Wonderful memory, thanks for sharing!

Yes, 1808

www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0711/1495830-elephant-house-du...

"Stephen Polito (also known as Stephano, Stephani and Stephanus Polito; 1763/64–1814) was a menagerie owner of Italian descent in Georgian England.
Polito was born in Moltrasio, Italy. He owned a menagerie which he toured around England in the late 18th century. He went into partnership with another menagerist named Miles in 1798, and "Miles and Polito's Menagerie" exhibited at St Bartholomew's Fair in 1799. Polito's menagerie also attended Nottingham Goose Fair in 1807. ... ...

From - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Polito

Staffordshire pottery flat back mantelpiece ornament, c. 1830 of the Menagerie of the Polito family. V&A Museum

Early 1908, a notice with similar wording appeared in Saunders's News-Letter on Tuesday 26 January 1808.

Mr Pollito had been in Briston in September 1807.

The adverts in Saunders News-letter continued until 14th May 1808, At some point between 26th January and 4th March the admission price was reduced to "One British Shilling".

So some time between 26th early January and 4th March 1808.

There is another one in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Via Simon Wilkinson who includes a bit of history -

Of course, the Zoo didn’t open until 1831, so these were great novelties

The sugar industry spurred Mossman's development. Two galvanized iron hotels were moved to Front Street from Craiglie in 1894, to become the Royal Hotel and Mossman Hotel, and the Queens Hotel was built in 1896. Mossman was linked to Port Douglas by a tramway in 1900 (sugar was shipped from Port Douglas from 1897 to 1958), and a tramway depot was located at the corner of Mill and Front Streets, near the Mossman Triangle. The town had five hotels by 1910, including the Exchange, Mossman, Royal, Post Office, and Queens. After the 1911 cyclone damaged buildings in both Mossman and Port Douglas, businesses and government buildings located at Port Douglas gravitated to Mossman. One of the early sugar suppliers to the Mossman Central Mill was Denis O'Brien, whose wife Teresa ran the first Exchange Hotel. O'Brien operated a hotel in Cooktown with Teresa from 1874, moved to Port Douglas in 1877, and opened the North Australian Hotel (now the Central Hotel). In 1893 O'Brien selected land near Mossman.[10] He grew sugar and was a director of the Mossman Central Mill, with his son Edward Joseph O'Brien (one of eight children) later serving as chairman of directors for many years. FW Buchanan built the first Exchange Hotel for the O'Brien's c. 1896, and Teresa O'Brien is listed in the 1897 Pugh's Almanac as running the Exchange Hotel in Mossman. In 1904 the eldest O'Brien daughter, Kate, married Daniel J Kirwan, who became the licensee of the hotel in 1905, the year Denis O'Brien died at his property "Finlayvale". The Exchange Hotel was originally one storey, but had a second storey by 16 March 1911 when a cyclone destroyed the upper floor. The hotel was repaired and continued to serve the town, despite being damaged again in a 1920 cyclone. Licensees of the hotel between 1914 and 1932 included EJ O'Brien, Sarah Ann Agnew, William Hyslop, Ellen Maud Petersen, Helena Norman McKenna, Teresa Nugent (nee O'Brien), and Ellen Constance O'Brien. Source: www.wikiwand.com/en/Exchange_Hotel,_Mossman#/History