It was June 21, 1966. Allen and Beatrix (“Trixie”) Gardner welcomed a chimpanzee named Kathy to Reno, Nevada. They renamed their wild-caught infant chimpanzee Washoe after the county in which Reno is located. In an ironic touch, the Gardners and Roger Fouts later discovered that Washoe, in the language of the Washoe Indians who were the county’s original inhabitants, meant “people,”1 in the sense of “the people,” or the special people of the region. Washoe was, the Gardners estimated, about 10 months old, and they intended to teach her a simple version of American Sign Language (ASL).