The Boswell Observatory at Doane College, Crete, Nebraska, as shown in this 5"x4" black and white photograph, is a mostly brick, one-story building on a stone foundation with a dome for the telescope at the right end. A chimney indicates the building was heated with either a fireplace or stove. Both a weather (or wind) vane and a cup anemometer are fixed to a pole on top of the roof. What appears to be a plank sidewalk leads to the door. Several leafless trees surround the building.
Boswell Observatory, built in 1883, was named for Charles Boswell of Connecticut, whose stepson taught at Doane. Boswell donated $5,000 for the building and astronomy equipment, which included an eight-inch equatorial telescope and a Greenwich Mean Time clock that was electrically conntected to a time ball on top of Merrill Hall. The observatory is believed to be the first weather service headquarters in Nebraska. It has been altered several times, including following a fire in 1930. The observatory now serves as a mini-museum for historical equipment, as well as for sky viewing with the restored original telescope. Boswell Observatory was the second college building on campus.
Sources: 1) Thomas D. Perry, History of Doane College 1872 to 1912 Crete, Nebraska (Doane College Crete, Nebraska, 1957), 60. 2) Janet L. Jeffries, Images of America, Crete (South Carolina, Arcadia Publishing, 2012), 67. 3) Don Ziegler, A College on the Hill and Beyond (Doane College Crete, Nebraska, 2007), 132.
