University of Southern California
Spence was one of the founders of the University of Southern California, which was then called Methodist College, and he was on its board of directors. He promised to donate some of his property, "including the lot at the corner of Pearl and Sixth streets (on which the Gates Hotel now stands)" to USC so that it might be sold and the proceeds used to place a telescope on the summit of Mount Wilson. University President George F. Bovard ordered a lens from the Cambridge manufactory Alvan Clark & Sons, but Spence died before the deal could be completed, so Bovard had to sell the glass to the University of Chicago. Another source said that Spence had agreed to give the cash sum of $50,000 to fund the telescope project, but it was later reported that the gift was indeed in the form of land that eventually lost its value and the USC contract with "a French firm for a forty-inch telescope, the largest in the world," had to be canceled.
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