The Memphis Zoo has announced a $10 million donation from FedEx founder Fred Smith and his wife, Diane, to fund a showcase for grizzly bears, the Commercial Appeal reports.

The largest private donation in the zoo's one-hundred-year history, the gift will support construction of Teton Trek, a three-acre habitat for grizzlies. Part of a $28 million, ten-year campaign that also will fund a new hippopotamus exhibit, the gift brings the amount raised to date to $18.6 million — all in the first year. FedEx has been a strong backer of the zoo.

Tentatively scheduled to open in spring 2009, Teton Trek will immerse visitors in the natural history and culture of Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Teton mountains, and will feature replicas of the Old Faithful geyser and the Old Faithful Inn, a historic landmark in America's oldest national park. The exhibit's "inn" will serve as a climate-controlled space where visitors can watch the bears swim, dive for fish, and bask on rock outcroppings.

Grizzlies, the namesake of the city's NBA franchise, have been absent from the zoo since 2002, when the old bear moats were shut down and the zoo's grizzlies were sent to the Detroit Zoo. "This is a much larger exhibit," said zoo president Dr. Chuck Brady. "It's not just a grizzly exhibit. You're going to feel like you're in the Yellowstone basin."