Page "California Institute of Technology" Paragraph 6

At a time when scientific research in the United States was still in its infancy, George Ellery Hale, a solar astronomer from the University of Chicago, founded the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1904.

He joined Throop's board of trustees in 1907, and soon began developing it and the whole of Pasadena into a major scientific and cultural destination.

He engineered the appointment of James A.

B. Scherer, a literary scholar untutored in science but a capable administrator and fund raiser, to Throop's presidency in 1908.

Scherer persuaded retired businessman and trustee Charles W. Gates to donate $ 25, 000 in seed money to build Gates Laboratory, the first science building on campus.