Regional History Project Oral Histories

Kenneth Campbell was a noted research engineer from Ridgewood, New Jersey. His father, William Wallace Campbell, was Director of the Lick Observatory from 1901 to 1930. This oral history includes descriptions of living conditions on Mount Hamilton at the turn of the century-- the Mt. Hamilton School, water supply, plumbing, food supplies, mail and banking, health care, nine-hole golf course, hunting and fishing, baseball, hiking, funerals and church attendance, and early automobiles. Campbell also discusses early Lick telescopes, eclipse expeditions around the world, and sketches of early Lick astronomers as Campbell remembered them from his youth.