James Lick, a carpenter and piano maker who grew rich in San Francisco, left $700,000 to build a great telescope. The observatory went up between 1876 and 1887, and Lick was buried beneath the telescope’s pier. He also had the county build a road to the 4,265-foot summit; to keep the grade gentle for horse-drawn wagons it winds through hundreds of turns, and today’s State Route 130 still follows it. Amalthea, Jupiter’s fifth moon, was discovered here in 1892.
Mount Hamilton is named for Laurentine Hamilton, a San Jose preacher who reached the summit with the state geological survey in 1861. To protect the observatory’s dark skies, San Jose long used low-pressure sodium streetlights, and in 1997 an asteroid, 6216 San Jose, was named for the city’s efforts. Snow occasionally dusts the peak in winter.