According to an article entitled "The Stone Tower on Great Head" by Gladys O'Neil in the Journal of Friends of Acadia and reprinted in "The Rusticator's Journal" (1993, Friends of Acadia), the observatory was actually a stone tea house tower built in 1915. The land (Great Head and Sand Beach) was bought by J.P. Morgan in 1910 as a gift for his daughter, Louisa Satterlee. The great fire of 1947 damaged the tower and destroyed the three nearby bungalows. Louisa Satterlee's daughter, Eleanor, donated the land two years after the fire to Acadia National Park. For safety reasons, what was left of the tower after the fire was torn down so that only the foundation remains.
