In 1926, William J. McDonald, a banker from Paris, Texas, bequeathed his estate to the University of Texas to build and equip an astronomical observatory. Because the university had no astronomy department, it contracted with the University of Chicago to locate and build the observatory and to operate it for thirty years. It is now operated by the University of Texas at Austin. McDonald Observatory enjoys clear skies during some or all of 300 nights per year, and it remains the darkest major observatory site in North America.
Following a scenic loop hugging Mount Livermore (highest summit in the Davis Mountains) along state highways 118 and 166, the first building visitors encounter is the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center (2002, Rhotenberry Wellen Architects). A two-story wall bisecting the building is veneered in red sandstone quarried near Pecos, as are the ramps leading to an adjacent amphitheater. The rainbow-like clerestory windows facing the courtyard illustrate the solar spectrum, with the thin stone slabs placed to represent the absorption lines of hydrogen.
The University of Chicago team, headed by Russian-born astronomer Otto Struve, chose a 6,720-foot-tall peak in the Davis Mountains. The earliest building on Mount Locke was built in 1939 with McDonald’s bequest. Its telescope, with a primary mirror 82 inches in diameter, was constructed by Warner and Swasey of Cleveland. Seven houses for permanent staff members were also built on Mount Locke in the 1930s.
The 107-inch telescope, just down the slope, opened in 1969. It was designed and erected by General Electric with funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). On the fourth floor it holds an enormous high-resolution spectrograph, designed and built by UT Austin astronomer Robert Tull, which has been used for groundbreaking studies of the chemical composition of stars.
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope, on nearby Mount Fowlkes, was built by a consortium of five universities (including UT Austin).