27. Observatory

The cornerstone for the Observatory was laid on September 8, 1883. The building, currently housing the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Institute, was completed in 1884 for only $10,000, including equipment, in right field of the campus baseball diamond.  Previously, the room on the first floor of the Observatory was used as a class and lecture room; the upper floor consisted of three rooms and the telescope, a fine old Alvan Clark 8.25" refractor placed in the tower. During World War I, the observatory was used as barracks for the Army. The original telescope, which the Smithsonian has tried to purchase numerous times, is still in use by astronomy students.

The green portion of the telescope is the Clark refractor, previous to its renovation in the early 1990s.  The blue portion is the solar prominence telescope prototype invented and donated by Marvin Vann '40.  The solar prominence telescope was used by the College for almost 20 years before the filter in the telescope became ineffective due to its age - it was removed when the Clark was renovated.  The black rings were used to hold a wide-angle camera that had been borrowed from the University of Michigan Astronomy Department.

The solid brick pier, upon which the telescope sits, goes deep into the ground to bedrock and reportedly contains more bricks than the rest of the building put together.  The building was dedicated as an official Michigan historical site on May 3, 1985.

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Advertisement for "The Old Reliable Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco" Gift, Keith Bricker, n.d.	"Observatory, Albion College." n.d.	"Observatory, Albione Collge [sic], Albion, Mich." n.d.	From student scrapbook, n.d. Pink & green ribbons in the corners were Albion's original colors.
"Observatory, Albion College, Albion, Mich." Photograph by Rotograph Co., 1905. Hand-colored.	Also by the Rotograph Co. "Your Uncle, M.M. Calkins." Back: "Miss L. Evangeline Eldred, Colon, Mich."	"Albion College Observatory, Albion, Michigan." Photograph by G.S. & F.C.O., n.d.	Made by Clare Tulie in Albion [Astronomy Club], ca. 1893.
"Albion College Observatory." Drawing by Jones McDuffee & Stratton Corp., Boston, Massachusetts, n.d.	June 1925.	Circa 1960s.	Clark refractor & solar prominence telescope before renovation in the 1990s. Dr. John A. Williams on right, n.d.
Photograph by Jonathan Beeton, 1990.	Clark refractor after renovation, n.d.	8" Alvan Clark refractor, n.d.	Michigan Historical Site marker, 1985.
Prentiss M. Brown Family. The Honors Institute, housed in the observatory, now bears the former Senator's name, 2004.

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