Meteor Crater Observatory Ruins

I-40 Exit 233, Meteor City, AZ
Phone:

East < GO > West

The Meteor Crater Observatory opened in July of 1936 as a museum and rock shop with a tower where visitors could use a telescope to view the Barringer Meteor Crater 6 miles away. It was the culmination of the hard work of Harry Locke. He was a cartoonist by trade whose interest in the crater led him to relocate to the area and build and open the observatory.

It is located at I-40, exit 233 on what was old Route 66.
GPS: 35.103881, -111.022394

In the 1930s tourists were not welcome at the crater itself so offering a chance to view through a telescope from 6 miles away may have seemed reasonable. A 1937 newspaper ad proclaimed ...

"Continuous Lectures Pertaining To The Worlds Famous Meteor Crater Of Arizona. Scientific, Educational, H. Locke, Lecturer."

The business was not successful and by 1938 it was listed for sale ...

"10 acres on U. S. Highway 66 overlooking the famous Meteor Crater, San Francisco Peaks, and Indian country. Stone building suitable for cafe, club house, curio store. Grand location for cottage court. ...."

Before building the observatory in the mid-1930s Locke had built a gas station and cafe in the 1920s a few hundred feet away at the intersection of what became the original Route 66 and the Meteor Road. He called that the Meteor Station. The station later became Rimmy Jim's At the time this spot was called Meteor Junction.

Harry Locke died in his mid-fifties from a heart attack in 1943 shortly after he joined the Winslow police department.

In 1945 the Winslow paper mentioned that A. G. Pelletier* was the manager of the Meteor Crater Observatory. Digging around in the paper a little more reveals that the Pelletier* family had apparently owned the business, running it as an Indian Curio shop, for "about" eight years. According to the newspaper article, they closed the shop at the observatory in late 1945 or early 1946, a year or so after they opened a new store in Williams. That fits the timeline for when Dr. Nininger appeared on the scene in 1946.

In 1946 Dr. Harvey Nininger purchased the observatory and opened the American Meteorite Museum in October of that year. Nininger was , well known and respected in the scientific community for his study of meteorites. In the first year of operation it had 33,000 visitors walked through the museum doors. Visitors paid 25 cents to use a telescope to look at the crater about 6 miles away. Nininger operated his museum in the former Meteor Crater Observatory until sometime in 1953 after which he moved the museum to Sedona, AZ.

Sadly that left this building empty and deteriorating significantly as time has passed.

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Vintage Advertising Highlights

American Meteorite Museum - U.S. Highway 66
Opposite Meteor Crater - H. H. Nininger, Director

(Later Undated Postcard)
American Meteorite Museum
19 miles west of Winslow on U. S. 66
The world's only meteorite museum.
Self-supporting educational and research institution devoted to meteorites. Exhibits "sky stones" from all over the world
Competent guides

NOTE: These two postcards are similar but there seems to be a bit of time between them. There is no date on the earlier postcard, but the car is a 1941 Chevrolet. There is no descriptive text on the back of the earlier card and Nininger isn't mentioned on the later card.

*The Pelletier name is sometimes appears as Pellatier in old newspaper articles. Both spellings appear to apply to the same people.

Photo(s): 2019