When I was a Teenager my Family lived in Neodesha and I used to go to Ralph Crowder's TV repair shop to visit. that was back when the Telescope sat on the lawn next to the shop and the land where the observatory is now was a Tulip growing field!
I appreciate all the correct information...Thank you
Keith Goering
06-May-2012 20:35
(second attempt)
The Boster Observatory is actually the Crowder Observatory built by one of Neodesha's most remarkable residents, Ralph Crowder. For many years, its 16 inch telescope was the largest and most powerful in the SE quarter of Kansas.
Ralph earned his living repairing radios and TV sets. The building housing his shop/garage still stands (Apr 2012) in the second block of South 1st Street. His real passion was science, especially physics and astronomy. Though completely self taught, he read books that only a college major could comprehend. He taught himself enough Russian to read a Russian astronomy book he'd acquired. He occasionally corresponded with university professors and could communicate at their level.
Except for a career in the army during WW II, he never left Neodesha. I mean he rarely went out of the city limits. Shortly before he died in the 80's, Ralph told me that a trip to Independence was the last time he had been out of town and it was at a time when Independence still had streetcar trolleys (over 30 years earlier).
Cecil Boster was a Standard refinery employee who collected antique weapons. From an old neighborhood grocery building on N 11th street, Boster bought, sold, and traded guns and knifes. Collectors from across the country came to Neodesha to deal with him. Unlike Crowder, Boster was had little interest in stars with the possible exception of the time movie star Joan Blondell dropped into his shop to buy a rare old gun. For the last 17 years of his life, Cecil Boster managed the Norman No. 1 Museum on the east end of Main Street.
