Greetings family, friends, and neighbors! The rings of Saturn, Jupiters Moons, Canals on the "Red Planet" Mars, and the surface of the Moon were available for viewing by the general public and by Oakland students beginning in 1883 thanks to a generous gift from Anthony Chabot. Today's snippet is about the historic Oakland Observatory........Bill 

1910 postcard: Chabot Observatory & Oakland High School, Oakland, Cal. 

Historic Snippets 

OAKLAND OBSERVATORY 

Canadian born Anthony Chabot began working in California’s 

mining industry in the 1850’s devising the first hydraulic mining 

technology and establishing two water driven sawmills. Gaining 

the reputation of “Water King”, he built San Francisco’s first public 

water system and those in Portland, Maine and Milwaukee, 

Wisconsin. He founded the Contra Costa Water Company in 1866 

that supplied water to Oakland and surrounding communities, and 

created a reservoir on San Leandro Creek that would later be 

named for him. 

Businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Chabot donated a 

telescope to the City of Oakland in 1883 along with sizable funds 

to build an observatory. Dubbed “Leah”, the state of the art 8 inch 

refractor telescope was located near downtown in Lafayette 

Square near Oakland High School in a specially constructed 

observatory. Unlike nearby San Jose’s Lick Observatory, 

constructed for astronomical research, Chabot designated that the 

Oakland Observatory was to be used by students and for public 

viewing at no charge. 

By 1915 urban congestion and light pollution began impacting 

viewing and the decision was made to move the observatory to a 

remote location on Mountain Boulevard in the Oakland Hills. A 

second telescope was added, “Rachel”, a 20 inch refractor with a 

28 foot focal length making it the largest public refractor in the 

western United States at the time. During the next fifty years the 

observatory was expanded to include classrooms, a planetarium, 

and staffing by Oakland Unified School District personnel and 

volunteers. Renamed the Chabot Science Center, seismic safety 

concerns for the thousands of Bay Area students visiting the 

observatory resulted in limiting access to the aging facility in 1977. 

The Oakland Unified School District, The City of Oakland, the East 

Bay Regional Park District and the East Bay Astronomical Society 

formed a Joint Powers Agency in 2000 creating the non-profit 

Chabot Space and Science Center, a state-of-the-art science and 

technology education facility. A third telescope was added, Nellie, 

a 36” reflector telescope housed in a rolling roof observatory, along 

with a full dome Zeiss Planetarium, IMAX style theatre, displays 

and immersive activities. 

-Bill 3/25