Fairmount Water Works and the Lemon Hill Observatory
This photograph, taken sometime between 1882 and 1891, shows the Fairmount Water Works forebay. Clicking the picture will open a larger version. Use the magnifying glass tool to continue to zoom in and you'll see several people strolling on the grounds (the women in the shade of parasols), a potted plant near the Race Bridge, a steamboat just outside the forebay, Boathouse Row, and the 225-foot-tall observation tower on Lemon Hill. (Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania)
The following story about the end days of the observatory appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on June 7, 1899:
THE OBSERVATORY SOLD
Lemon Hill Landmark May Become Scrap Iron
Visitors to Fairmount Park, in the vicinity of Lemon Hill will soon miss what has for twenty-three years been a familiar landmark. The observatory, which was erected as one of the attractions of the Centennial exposition, has been sold, and while the purchasers have not fully determined what disposition they will make of it, the possibilities are that it will soon adorn a scrap iron heap, and eventually be worked over into new iron.
The observatory was put up at peremptory sale and auctioned off yesterday at the Bourse. Only two bidders appeared to take any interest in the sale: one was a representative of C. R. Baird & Co., who eventually had the property knocked down to him. The first bid offered was $250, and the offers advanced in $25 slices until $1000 was reached, when Baird’s representative bid another $25, and captured the prize.
Lemon Hill observatory was erected at a cost of $50,000, and is constructed of the best Phoenix Iron. It is a square structure, 55 x 55 feet at the base, 28 x 28 feet at the top, and is 225 feet high. The frame is composed of eight exterior and five interior columns so braced by rods of wrought iron as to be capable of withstanding three times the pressure resulting from a wind of one hundred miles per hour, equal to fifty pounds per square inch. There are two elevators and a duplex steam engine of fifteen horse power. The boiler, engine and elevator machinery have recently been overhauled at a cost of $800. A representative of the purchasers said yesterday: “We have not decided what disposition will be made of the observatory, but if any one wants to buy it, of course he can do so.”