America's Most Historic Observatory Is Reborn—And Open for Tours

Edwin Hubble and Carl Sagan lived in the same attic. Forty-three years apart, they worked and studied a floor below, in the same rooms where Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief of astronomy, studied the motion of stars; where Gerard Kuiper figured out the other side of Neptune; where William Morgan discovered the shape of the Milky Way.

Like binary stars, these stories orbit around Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, about 6 miles east of Lake Geneva. Widely regarded as the most historic observatory in America—and home to the largest refracting telescope in the world—this forgotten masterpiece was almost demolished. The local community gathered to save it, and today, it's inviting all of us to visit and interact with history, art and space.

A Midwestern—and Global—Icon Reborn

Yerkes Observatory, property of The University of Chicago, was the first astrophysics school in the nation. But by 2005, the 1897 Beaux Arts masterpiece had gotten too expensive to maintain, and the university wanted the property off its hands. There were proposals to turn it into a resort, a spa, a subdivision—and then locals intervened.

"The community raised a fuss," says Walt Chadick, the observatory's director of programs and external affairs. "A lot of people stood up and said, 'Hold on. This is America's most historic, most celebrated observatory. We need to protect this heralded place.'"

The university donated the facility to a community-led nonprofit, Yerkes Future Foundation, in 2020—books, slides, telescopes, trash and all. It was an archaeological site: Rummaging through the attic, YFF staff found relics like Hubble's dissertation and Gerard Kuiper's lunar sphere. In the basement, yellowing dark rooms reeked of hydroquinone and acetic acid, and Reagan's "Star Wars" lasers sat gathering dust.

By 2022, the foundation had raised roughly $14 million for renovation, and the public was invited inside—in small, reserved groups—to wander the halls of Hubble, to gaze upon the Great Refractor, to thumb through books with famous autographs on library cards. "We began with just me," says Chadick, "taking people through construction sites, through those stuck-in-amber places." While certain areas will remain in amber—like the first computers used in 1973—the majority of the facility will be fully restored over the coming years.

"We don't want to be a dusty relic," Chadick explains. "We want to be a forward-thinking modern maker of things."

A New Era for Yerkes

Don't call it a "museum," says Chadick—the observatory's doors are locked, and timed tours can only be reserved online. The classic tour explores the "big dome" with the Great Refractor, the rotunda, and the building's architectural highlights; the "Hidden Spaces" tour ventures into the smaller domes with smaller telescopes, the old darkrooms, and dormitories where the PhD students lived; and the landscape tour explores the grounds (designed by John Charles Olmsted, son of Frederick Law Olmsted) and Yerkes' new status as an internationally accredited arboretum. Five miles of newly blazed woodland trails maze throughout the property for extra exploration.

Special events, though, are where the observatory—which is still functioning, Chadick adds—shines like a supernova. Star parties pepper the calendar, telescope viewing nights bring the public to the Great Refractor, and artistic collaborations turn the facility into an innovations incubator. Thirty musicians from the Blackbird Creative Lab wrote and performed a symphony onsite, composed from interpreted astronomical images; U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith was featured in the Summer Speaker Series; and Ashley Zelinskie, the official sculptor for the James Webb Space Telescope, built a black hole space-time continuum sculpture in the side yard.

"I don't know anywhere on Earth where astronomers collaborate this closely with artists," says Chadick. "We want artists to be illuminated, astronomers to have the chance to work with and teach diverse thinkers and creators, and people to leave filled with joy."

Book tours in advance at yerkesobservatory.org.

More Out-of-This-World Experiences in the Midwest

Adler Planetarium, Chicago

The Midwest has another astronomic first: Adler Planetarium, the first planetarium in the country. See Chicago's night sky as it appeared more than 100 years ago via the Atwood Sphere, catch sky shows in one of two dome theaters, and gaze through the city's largest publicly accessible telescope at the Doane Observatory.

Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, Kansas

Partspace museum, part STEM education center, Cosmosphere—roughly an hour northwest of Wichita—brings its visitors a chance to live out their astronaut dreams. Try on a space suit, hop in a cockpit, scope out Russian space artifacts and catch a show in the Justice Planetarium.

Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota

The only dark sky–designated national park in the Midwest, Voyageurs National Park—a forested, lake-filled expanse just south of the Canadian border—offers designated night-sky programs as well as opportunities, night after night, to stargaze, count flying meteors, and witness the spectacular northern lights.