Fiske was founded in 1975 with a donation from University of Colorado alumni, Wallace Franz Fiske (class of 1917). The donation was made to CU upon his death in 1966, in the amount of $1.13 million. While a quarter of this amount was dedicated to the university's music department, the remaining amount was "to build and equip a planetarium for the University of Colorado." By the time the university's astronomers decided to act on the donation in 1971, their share had grown to $1.61 million.