The Yerkes Observatory was founded in 1897 in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The observatory features the worlds largest refracting telescope. The images are mind-blowing considering they were taken so long ago. It's hard to believe scientists from that time had the capability of capturing Images of far away nebulas and comets blazing through space.
Even Albert Einstein himself was a visitor of the observatory. You can check out the article
here with more information and excerpts from the original article that ran in National Geographic in 1919.