This was a high point of our trip, both literally and figuratively. After checking into our hotel in Portland, went to look at the nearby Portland Observatory and it was our great fortune to find it open on Thursday evenings! The observatory was built to watch for ships, not stars— as soon as approaching ship could be identified by a watchman with a telescope, he would hoist a flag visible at the docks so the wharves could be ready for its arrival.
We are lucky it is still here. Built in 1807, the Great Fire of 1866 came so close that boys were sent up with buckets of water throw down on the walls to keep them wet. Saved from that catastrophe, it lay abandoned from 1923 when radio made it obsolete until the 1990s when restoration work begun by which time it had fallen into disrepair. There is a fire station next door now so there will be a swift response if anything happens.