| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office. It was originally located on Observatory Hill near the Washburn Observatory. On August 13, 1959, the Wisconsin Legislature approved Act 297 which approved the donation of the building to the Madison Astronomical Society and authorized its removal from where it sat on Observatory Hill, east of the Washburn Observatory, in Madison. Oscar Mayer, Sr. was an avid amateur astronomer and paid for the majority of the costs involved. It was then renamed in his honor. The building is a Fitchburg Landmark.
2019 Survey of the City of Fitchburg recommendation write-up:
Rising from a concrete foundation, this frame-constructed building consists of a gabled block to the rear, which is connected at its southwest corner to the domed observatory proper via a one-story, flat-roofed section. Windows throughout the building consist of tall-and-narrow openings with a pedimented wooden surround. A four-panel wooden door is located along the easterly side of the one-story connecting section, while a second entrance is located along the westerly elevation of the rear gabled wing.
Designed by architect David R. Jones (See Chapter 3 for biographical information regarding Jones) and completed in 1880, the subject observatory was built as the student observatory at UW-Madison. It originally stood alongside the Washburn Observatory (1401 Observatory Drive, Madison), which was completed two years later. Both structures were utilized by the University until the late 1950s, at which time the new Pine Bluff Observatory was built (in 1958) in Cross Plains, approximately 11 miles west of the UW campus. Considered for demolition following construction of the Pine Bluff facility, the student observatory was, instead, donated in 1959 by the UW-Regents to the Madison Astronomical Society, a non-profit, educational organization that was established in 1930 as an offshoot of the UW Astronomy Department. The building was then moved in 1960 to the subject location in what was then the Town of Fitchburg, on the grounds of Bjorksten Research Laboratories. The moved building joined a small frame structure (no longer extant) that was built at that same Fitchburg location in 1954 and was used by the Madison Junior Astronomical Society (age 18 and under). A larger portion of the funding for the building’s move from the UW campus was provided by Oscar Mayer Sr., an amateur astronomer, who had previously donated a telescope (that was previously in Chicago’s Adler Planetarium) to the group in 1954. As a result of Mayer’s contributions, the building was renamed the Oscar Mayer Observatory. The observatory was owned and utilized by the Astronomical Society until the mid-1980s, until city lights rendered its discontinued use. In 1990, the Astronomical Society donated the building to the City of Fitchburg. It was later turned over to the Fitchburg Research Park Associates. In 1999, there was a movement to list the building in the National Register; however, that did not come to fruition. The building is now owned by the Promega Corporation.
The number of observatory structures in the state of Wisconsin is small in number and, of those, just three—Washburn Observatory, Yerkes Observatory and the subject Oscar Mayer Observatory--were built prior to 1900. Although Yerkes (which is owned by the University of Chicago and was completed in 1897) is still open to researchers, it was closed to the public in 2018. Owned by UW-Madison and completed in 1882, the Washburn Observatory is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is open to the public on a regular monthly schedule. As mentioned above, Pine Bluff--the official observatory of the University--is located in Cross Plains and was built in 1958. The Oscar Mayer Observatory, while moved, does still function as an observatory; however, it is privately owned by Promega and open only to its employees or those invited to use it (the land upon which it is located, however, is owned by the Fitchburg Research Park Associates).
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| Bibliographic References: | The Wisconsin Engineer, 10/1916, p. 312.
Act 297, 8/15/1959.
http://www.fitchburgwi.gov/2156/Landmarks-Preservation http://www.fitchburgwi.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9425
https://physicalplant.wisc.edu/buildings/StudentObservatory.pdf
For footnotes to 2019 survey write-up below, See the Historical & Architectural Resources Survey, City of Fitchburg, Dane County, Wisconsin, by Traci E. Schnell/tes | Historical Consulting, LLC, completed in 2019. |
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