Nestled in the Davis Mountains is one of the most important centers of learning in the world located in one of the most remote parts of the state, the famed McDonald Observatory, run by the University of Texas. Throughout its decades of operation, the McDonald Observatory has attracted some of the most important names in twentieth-century astronomy and made important discoveries from the inner solar system to the furthest reaches of the universe.
The observatory was the dream of a quiet banker and lawyer from Paris, Texas, William Johnson McDonald. He had amassed a great fortune and left the bulk of it, some $1 million (or about $18.3 million in 2025 dollars), to the University of Texas on his death in 1926 to establish an observatory. Though McDonald had no children, he had several relatives who were enraged at his gift to UT. After several years of court fights, the university’s donation was set at $800,000.
At the time, the university did not have a formal astronomy department, but administrators quickly went on a search for top scientific talent and for a fitting location for the observatory. The university quickly formed a 30-year partnership with the University of Chicago to run the observatory.
In the meantime, Edwin Fowlkes donated a stretch of his family’s lands in Jeff Davis County in the Davis Mountains as the site. From its position in remote West Texas, it has an almost perfect position for ground-based astronomers. The dry air means many clear nights for observing. And it is so far from any large city that there are no streetlights to break the darkness of the night sky. Astronomers are left with only the wide open sky and their love of the starts above.
As the observatory became operational, Dr. Otto Struve, a Ukrainian-born astronomer serving at the University of Chicago, was named its first director in 1932. At the same time, he was also running the prestigious Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. Struve had previously discovered two asteroids and made important discoveries regarding binary stars. He quickly established McDonald Observatory’s reputation as an important center for research. Struve oversaw the completion of the observatory’s renowned 2.1-meter telescope in 1939 on Mt. Locke, a scope now named after Struve. At the time of its completion, it was the second-largest telescope in the world, and it was unveiled with great fanfare among scientists.
Dr. Gerard Kuiper of The Netherlands took charge of the observatory as director in 1947. Kuiper was already a respected name in science. By this point, his discoveries included the discovery of the moon Miranda around Uranus and the small moon Nereid around Neptune. He would also discover carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars and the existence of a thick methane atmosphere around Saturn’s moon Titan, the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere. He helped position the university and the observatory as an important center for astronomy in the years after World War II. He would step down in 1949 but return as director between 1957 and 1959. The Kuiper Belt, a ring of dust, comets, and small asteroids and planetoids between 3 billion and 5 billion miles from Earth that surrounds the solar system, was named for him based on his 1951 theory of its existence.
In between Kuiper’s terms as director, Dr. Bengt Stromgren of Denmark ran the observatory from 1951 to 1957. Stromgren made a number of important breakthroughs fro astronomy, including the discovery that stars are mostly hydrogen and a new photometry system that allowed astronomers to analyze starlight with greater accuracy.
Dr. William Morgan would follow between 1959 and 1963 and became a respected figure for his work in understanding the structure of galaxies. He was able to determine that the Milky Way galaxy is itself a spiral galaxy, with arms of stars, gas, and dust curling for tens of thousands of light years around the galaxy’s central core.
Dr. Harlan Smith would be the observatory’s longest serving director, taking the reins in 1963. He opened a new era for the observatory by gaining the funds to build a new 2.7-meter telescope in 1963, complete in 1968 at a cost of $5 million (or about $45.6 million in 2025 dollars). The telescope’s main mirror weighs nearly four tons. He served until 1989. The telescope was later named in his honor.
The observatory would continue to develop new instruments and experiments to observe the universe. This included a series of radio telescopes that listened to radio waves from the stars that operated from 1968 until it was dismantled in 1989. The McDonald Laser Ranging System operated at the observatory between 1982 and 2019 for measurements on satellite orbits and the Moon’s geologic features.
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope was completed in 1994 on Mt. Fowlkes. With 91 mirror segments, it is 11 meters in diameter, making it one of the largest in the world. It is currently used as a part of a survey of dark energy. It is one of five main optical telescopes currently in use at the observatory.
Today, the McDonald Observatory continues to function as an important center of research for astronomers around the world. Regular tours are provided for the public at the Frank Bash Visitor Center, named for another respected prior director. The observatory also hosts star parties for visitors to gaze the night skies with the professional astronomers, offering the chance to look through the largest scopes when not in use. The State of Texas named the observatory a historic site in 1968.
