Nairobi's Zimmerman Estate located along Thika Road boasted the second largest taxidermy company in the world after Jonas Brothers of the USA.
Taxidermy is the art of preserving animals by mounting their reals skins on carvings or stuffing them with cotton and other material.
US President, Theodore Roosevelt was among the biggest collectors of game trophies from Zimmerman Limited.
Karl Fritz Paul Carl Zimmerman, whom the estate was named after owned the establishment where Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos also came to shop for stuffed animals.
The shop also had a tannery whose by-products included zebra carpets, warthog tusk beer openers, elephant ear handbags, elephant feet dustbins, earring pendants shaped out of lion claws, and pouches fashioned from buffalo scrotums.
State House, Nairobi also sourced some of its animal decoration from the world-renowned market.
The shop was closed in 1977 when game hunting was banned in Kenya.
One of its last projects was the mounting of Ahmed, the Marsabit elephant that had been protected by a presidential decree and which still stands at the National Museums of Kenya’s exhibition gallery.
The land that the company sat on was next to River Ruaraka where women bathed and did laundry.
Legend has it that the women gave the river its name Rui rwa aka which is Kikuyu for ‘river for women’.
