Turns out Heber Curtis did not want the job as director (and in fact, turned down the headhunter from Michigan at least once). Yet on a trip through Ann Arbor, the President of the University and Dean of LSA prevailed upon him (with “foot, horse, and guns” – a phrase he may have picked up from his dad, a civil war veteran who lost an arm at Fredericksburg) to do his civic duty as an astronomer and as a UM graduate, and lead the department into the new age. Of course, they did not know the recent economic downturn was actually going to become The Great Depression. Plans for a huge new installation, and enormous new telescopes … the things that prompted Curtis to even consider the job in the first place, eventually had to be abandoned.
Michigan Astro History
Pieces of the Past from Michigan Astronomy
