The LHO was the project of two people: Robert P. Lamont, an industrialist, and William J. Hussey, a professor of astronomy at UM, and director of the Detroit Observatory.

[1] After the telescope was completed and shipped to South Africa in 1926, Hussey and another UM professor, R. A. Rossiter, left Michigan for the observatory site.

The lenses for the telescope were initially ordered in 1911, but due to the First World War, the two lens blanks were not delivered by Carl Zeiss Jena until 1923.

The finished lenses were sent to Ann Arbor, where they were integrated into the great refractor built by the Detroit Observatory's machine shop.

[6] The telescope tube and other parts remained in South Africa, and are on display at the Erlich Park Fire Station Museum.

A 10.5 in (270 mm) refractor originally located at Mount Wilson Observatory was installed in 1948 and used to search for strong H-alpha-emitting objects.