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Super Moderator
- Joined
- May 2, 2008
- Location
- Stockton CA
- Moto(s)
- 2020 BMW S1000XR Lowride.
- Name
- Bill Harr
- BARF perks
- AMA #: 1097
From San Jose History on FB. Butch is the turn count correct?
"Lick Observatory is the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory.
The observatory, in a Classical Revival style structure, was constructed around 1887, from a bequest from James Lick of $700,000 (approximately $25 million in 2018 US dollars).
Lick, although primarily a carpenter and piano maker, chose the precise site atop Mount Hamilton and was there buried in 1887 under the future site of the telescope, with a brass tablet bearing the inscription, "Here lies the body of James Lick". What followed was the famous Great Refractor, a feat of engineering and the largest refracting telescope in the world when it was completed in 1888.
Lick additionally requested that Santa Clara County construct a "first-class road" to the summit, completed in 1876. All of the construction materials had to be brought to the site by horse and mule-drawn wagons, which could not negotiate a steep grade. To keep the grade below 6.5%, the road had to take a very winding and sinuous path, which the modern-day road (California State Route 130) still follows. Tradition maintains that this road has exactly 365 turns (This is approximately correct, although uncertainty as to what should count as a turn makes precise verification impossible).
James Lick, was the richest man in California at the time of his death in 1876. James Lick was born in Pennsylvania in 1796. He came to San Francisco in 1848 after a successful career as a piano builder in South America."
"Lick Observatory is the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory.
The observatory, in a Classical Revival style structure, was constructed around 1887, from a bequest from James Lick of $700,000 (approximately $25 million in 2018 US dollars).
Lick, although primarily a carpenter and piano maker, chose the precise site atop Mount Hamilton and was there buried in 1887 under the future site of the telescope, with a brass tablet bearing the inscription, "Here lies the body of James Lick". What followed was the famous Great Refractor, a feat of engineering and the largest refracting telescope in the world when it was completed in 1888.
Lick additionally requested that Santa Clara County construct a "first-class road" to the summit, completed in 1876. All of the construction materials had to be brought to the site by horse and mule-drawn wagons, which could not negotiate a steep grade. To keep the grade below 6.5%, the road had to take a very winding and sinuous path, which the modern-day road (California State Route 130) still follows. Tradition maintains that this road has exactly 365 turns (This is approximately correct, although uncertainty as to what should count as a turn makes precise verification impossible).
James Lick, was the richest man in California at the time of his death in 1876. James Lick was born in Pennsylvania in 1796. He came to San Francisco in 1848 after a successful career as a piano builder in South America."
