It is on the campus of Western Reserve Academy, a college preparatory school.

When the observatory was constructed the school was Western Reserve College, which later relocated to Cleveland and is now known as Case Western Reserve University.

Under the influence and design of Professor Elias Loomis, who purchased the necessary instruments in England after studying in Europe, the observatory was built by architect Simeon Porter.

[2] The original Troughton & Simms equatorial telescope and Robert Molyneux-built astronomical clock remain in the observatory dating to 1837.

[3] An inscription on the historic marker reads: "Elias Loomis and Charles Augustus Young worked in this Observatory, built in 1838, the third to be erected in the United States, the second oldest standing (1926).