The Charles Smith Scott Memorial Observatory is a variation of the T plan observatory building style designed as a teaching facility. In its present condition, the building's historical integrity is intact due to its location, setting, design and workmanship which convey feelings of and associations with its time period and areas of significance. Located on a hill at the highest point on the Park college campus in Parkville, Missouri approximately 158 feet above the railroad line on the Missouri River, the main two story domed tower is octagonal in shape with an adjoining one story 13 x 13 foot transit telescope ell-room with a barrel roof. Both are constructed of pitched face, random ashlar limestone, pointed close quarried and dressed on the college campus. Above the transit room is a wood frame stairwell enclosure with horizontal lap siding. The octagonal observation tower which houses the equatorial room is 15 feet 8 inches in diameter and rises to a height of 29 feet 4 inches. It is capped by a hand-tooled limestone plate, which carries the dome track, and copper ogee guttering which unites with the limestone plate to form a cornice. The exterior diameter of the wood framed, copper sheathed dome is 15 feet 6 inches and its base begins at 5 feet 4 inches above the second floor equatorial room floor. The operable, sliding viewing slot has a clear opening of 2 feet 6 inches. The original three foot wide wrought-iron exterior balcony runs the outer circumference of the building at the second story floor level. It features a wrought iron lattice balustrade and is supported by decorative iron brackets which are bolted through the masonry wall. The transit room has a vaulted copper sheathed roof with two hinged shuttered roof viewing ports operated by weights and pulleys which extend across the width of the roof and are situated directly above two shuttered side viewing ports. - NRHP, 4 November 1992