Elgin National Watch Company Observatory - Elgin, IL
Posted by: cldisme
N 42° 01.795 W 088° 16.427
16T E 394556 N 4653882
An observatory built to calibrate watches.
Waymark Code: WMAZK8
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 03/16/2011
Views: 2
In 1910, the Elgin National Watch Company designed and constructed this observatory near its
factory to create a standard time for its watches.
The
equipment within the observatory were all created to minimize the outside influences from disturbing the timekeeping instruments as well as the three-inch objective lens in the transit telescope.
Once the Elgin National Watch Company began to realize their business was floundering and a timekeeping observatory was obsolete, they turned the facility over to the Elgin School District for educational purposes in 1960.
To bring additional educational resources to the building, the Elgin School District added a planetarium to the rear in 1963.
The observatory was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.