A gargantuan scientific display from the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago has been hidden from site for months, but soon may see the light of day. Housed inside an historic and ornate building overlooking Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, is the Yerkes Telescope, a 40-inch diameter doublet-lens refracting telescope that is the largest ever successfully used for astronomy. During the 1893 World’s Fair, this telescope was exhibited in the north end of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building.
The Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, is one of most beautiful buildings designed by Henry Ives Cobb. Cobb served as the architect of the Fisheries Building, Café de la Marine (aka Marine Café), the Indiana Building, the East India Pavilion, and the Street in Cairo exhibit on the Midway for the Columbian Exposition. The University of Chicago has owned and operated the Yerkes Observatory since it opened in 1897, but closed the facility in October 2018. (See “Yerkes Observatory Faces Uncertain Future”)
The Chicago Tribune now reports that the University of Chicago is donating the historic observatory, several telescopes, and 49 acres of surrounding grounds to the Yerkes Future Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that plans to refurbish and refresh the facility. A visit to see the telescope and observatory building is not to be missed by Columbian Exposition enthusiasts.
A painting of the Yerkes Telescope by Charles Graham.