Long ago on independence square (Kansas City, Jackson: assessor, incorporated, teenage)

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

It was also the Three Trails Hotel at one time.

Interesting because the Three Trails Hotel is listed across the street in 1960 at 517 W Maple

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

Interesting because the Three Trails Hotel is listed across the street in 1960 at 517 W Maple

Chuckle, looks like I got them mixed up. 1960ish was the time frame I was thinking.

[WCHS'59]

Current day Three Trails Inn at 1107 West College.

[WCHS'59]

Prior to this post office building being constructed at Lexington, Osage, and Maple in 1911, the Independence Post Office was located at 218 West Maple.

Prior to that it was at 123 South Liberty and prior to that it was at 209 West Lexington.

Quite a change in digs for what was previously very small post office working areas.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

North Main Street home of Frederick Herman Henry Knoepker from 1896 to 1947, founder of the Knoepker mercantile store at 106-108 west Maple.

714 N Main....still looks in good shape with upkeep. Can't say the same for 522 W Maple which is in dire need of a paint job

[WCHS'59]

Sometime before 1914, William Pitt, an Independence city councilman built a three story back yard observatory similar to this one but on a smaller scale. It had a high powered telescope that peered through open doors similar to the photo and had a rotating turret to follow the stars. Pitt was an amateur astronomer.

The observatory was built at his home at 1310 West Short, just a few houses west of Lexington Street.

I am not sure whether the observatory was still there in the fifties but I can recall looking for it.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

Sometime before 1914, William Pitt, an Independence city councilman built a three story back yard observatory similar to this one but on a smaller scale. It had a high powered telescope that peered through open doors similar to the photo and had a rotating turret to follow the stars. Pitt was an amateur astronomer.

The observatory was built at his home at 1310 West Short, just a few houses west of Lexington Street.

I am not sure whether the observatory was still there in the fifties but I can recall looking for it.

I sure never saw it, in fact never heard of it until now.

Right behind Mrs Cooper's Hobbies

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

I sure never saw it, in fact never heard of it until now.

Right behind Mrs Cooper's Hobbies

This is a depiction of a telescope made by William Pitt at his home after he moved to Kansas City. It was moved to the University of Kansas.



Fig. 3. This drawing, a plan view of the Pitt telescope by Manley J. Hood, who carried out the majority of the mechanical design and construction of the telescope, shows the instrument in its original prime focus configuration. Subsequent photos of the telescope show it after its conversion to a Newtonian reflector under the supervision of the late Professor N. Wyman Storer. (Photograph from The Kansas Engineer [March 1928], p. 15, courtesy of the University of Kansas Archives.)



Originally, Alter and Pitt had hoped to acquire a clear quartz disk of the appropriate size to be used as the primary of the new instrument. Failing in this endeavor, it was decided to achieve the high degree of thermal stability required of telescope mirrors by using a disk made of pyrex. The disk, arriving in Kansas City in January 1928, weighed about 250 pounds, and was 27.5 inches in diameter and 4.5 inches thick; it cost $250. The grinding and polishing of the blank was carried out in Mr Pitt's home in Kansas City-specifically in an emptied swimming pool in the amateur astronomer's basement. For over a year, Pitt and an assistant carried out the grinding, polishing and figuring of the mirror. By February 1929, knife-edge tests conducted by Alter and Pitt indicated that the desired paraboloidal figure had been nearly achieved. Shortly thereafter, the 27-inch mirror was transported to Lawrence for installation at the Observatory. At the time of its installation in 1929, the William Pitt-University of Kansas 27-inch telescope was the first telescope to have its main light-gathering element made of Pyrex, although a 16-inch secondary mirror made of Pyrex was in use at Mt. Wilson at the time.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

Sometime before 1914, William Pitt, an Independence city councilman built a three story back yard observatory similar to this one but on a smaller scale. It had a high powered telescope that peered through open doors similar to the photo and had a rotating turret to follow the stars. Pitt was an amateur astronomer.

The observatory was built at his home at 1310 West Short, just a few houses west of Lexington Street.

I am not sure whether the observatory was still there in the fifties but I can recall looking for it.

A childhood chum of mine lived a few houses east of this. I don't recall anything resembling an observatory while hanging out over there. It should have been easily visible from the alley.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

A childhood chum of mine lived a few houses east of this. I don't recall anything resembling an observatory while hanging out over there. It should have been easily visible from the alley.

Here is all I could find from the Jackson County Historical Society


Page 7: "William Pitt, in addition to being one of Kansas City's leading business men, was also an amateur astronomer of considerable distinction. At his home on West Short Street [in Independence] he built an observatory, installing a powerful telescope for his own use and for the enjoyment of others. ..[At his next home at 53rd and Ward Parkways in Kansas City] Pitt built one of the largest reflector telescopes in the Middle West. Eventually the telescope was placed in the University of Kansas, at Lawrence." He moved to New Jersey with his wife in 1940 before dying in 1950. AuthorSue Gentry