Founded in 1885 as the territory's first land-grant university, the University of Arizona is now a major research institution of around 47,000 students and the largest employer in the city. The Old Main building (1891) sits at the western end of the long Main Mall — a tree-lined pedestrian strip that runs east through the campus.
The university is the engine behind much of Tucson's astronomy and optics work: the Wyant College of Optical Sciences, the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and the Caris Mirror Lab under the football stadium, where the world's largest telescope mirrors are cast. Several first-rate small museums — the Arizona State Museum, the Center for Creative Photography, and the UA Museum of Art — are open to the public.