Peach Mountain Observatory, operated by the University of Michigan near Dexter, opened in 1955 as a working center for research, teaching, and amateur astronomy, extending the university’s long astronomical tradition beyond earlier observatories in Ann Arbor, Lake Angelus, South Africa, and Portage Lake. Its key instruments included the 26-meter Peach Mountain Radio Telescope, completed in 1958 and later used from the mid-1960s to monitor radio emissions from active extragalactic objects until its use ended after 2010, as well as the Francis C. McMath Memorial 24-Inch Reflecting Telescope, relocated there in 1959 and transferred to the University Lowbrow Astronomers in 1979. The site also retains the control building of an earlier 8.5-meter radio telescope completed in 1956.