Four members of the Otis Gunn family are memorialized by this tall obelisk gravestone in beautiful, historic, and tragic Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence KS.
Lucy Gunn, the infant daughter of Maj. Otis and Mary Gunn, died in 1863 only a few months before her 2nd birthday. She is the first Gunn family member to be buried in this beautiful spot.
17 years later in 1880, Charles Henry Gunn, Otis and Mary's 24-year old son died and was buried here.
Maj. Otis and Mary Gunn lived until 1901 and 1918, respectively.
Gunn is an interesting figure: A veteran of the Civil War, a politician, a railroad engineer and surveyor. Gunn and partner David Mitchell also surveyed and made maps to help emigrants move west:
"Engineer Otis B. Gunn and surveyor, land agent, and lawyer David T. Mitchell each created a map of Kansas and its surrounding lands in 1859. By 1861 the two men were working together to publish Gunn & Mitchell's New Map of Kansas. Scott McEathron, of the T. R. Smith Map Collection at the University of Kansas Libraries, explores the publishing history of the 1861 map and its subsequent editions, which were published until 1866. He suggests that the primary market for the map was immigrants seeking land in eastern Kansas and secondarily participants of the Colorado gold rush." source: (
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An article on these maps can be found here: (
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From History of Wyandotte County, Kansas: and its people, Volume 1
edited by Perl Wilbur Morgan (some editing by us for clarity): (
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"Otis Berthoude Gunn, a member of the first state senate from Wyandotte county, was born October 27 1828 at Montague Massachusetts, the son of Otis and Lucy Fisk Gunn. He had a thorough New England common school education and began work as a rodman on the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel Railroad.
He became engineer in charge of the railroad between Rochester and Niagara Falls, taught school for two years near Harrisburg Pennsylvania, and in 1853 was division engineer in the construction of the Toledo Wabash & Western.
Following railroad construction westward until he located in Kansas in 1857, settling at Wyandotte in 1859, he was elected to the first state senate which met in 1861. In 1861 he was appointed major of the Fourth Kansas regiment (later the Tenth Kansas Infantry), but in May 1862 resigned to resume railroad work. He was connected at various times thereafter with the Kansas City & Cameron RR, the Leavenworth Pawnee & Western RR, the Central Branch RR, the Union Pacific RR, and the Missouri Kansas & Texas RR. Of this last named road he built six hundred miles of track.
He also built the bridge across the Missouri river at Atchison and in 1876 superintended the construction of the present union depot in Kansas City, finally earning the name of a great engineer.
In 1896 he wrote a financial article entitled Bullion versus Coin which the Republican national committee circulated broadcast over the country.
He died in Kansas City February 18 1901 and was buried in Oak Grove Lawrence His widow (Mary Helen Crosby) (1831-1918) resides in Kansas City Missouri.
The Gunns had five children:Vera Helen Gunn Whitehead, Frederick Gunn, Ellen Ann Gunn Howard, Charles Gunn and Lucy Gunn passed away before their parents." [end]
Their only surviving son, Frederick C. Gunn, became a prominent architect in the Kansas City metropolitan area. He designed sevreal important buldings in Kansas City MO. frederick Gunn's papers are in the collection of the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Kansas City, University of MO at Kansas City. Source: (
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"Frederick C. Gunn, noted Kansas City architect, came to Kansas City in 1890. His father, Otis B. Gunn, was a young engineer on the Rochester and Niagara Falls Railroad when he married Mary Helen Crosby. They moved to Wyandotte County, Kansas, in 1856 and lived there during the Civil War. Major Gunn was the first member of the Kansas Senate elected from Wyandotte County, later became a major in the 4th Kansas Volunteers, and served on the staff of the war governor, Charles Robinson. Major Gunn acted in the capacity of the chief engineer in the building of Kansas City's Union Depot, played a leading role in the construction of the Hannibal Bridge over the Missouri River, and took an active part in the railroad development of the Middle West. The family moved to Lawrence, Kansas.
Frederick Gunn planned and helped design several Kansas City buildings such as the City Market (1938), the Jackson County Court House (1934), the Mercantile Building at 12th and Grand, the headquarters of the Church of the Nazarene at 2923 Troost, among others. He was in partnership with architect Louis Curtiss in the 1890's, with whom he designed buildings such as the Missouri State Building for the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago and the Progress Club. They, together with F.E. Hill, planned Oak Hall for William Rockhill Nelson.
This collection consists of newspaper clippings, one ledger book, diaries, pamphlets, and books written by and/or concerning Otis B. Gunn and his son Frederick C. Gunn. In addition to the papers of father and son, the collection contains daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, and photographs in fragile condition dating from before the 1850s. ca. 1840s-1986." [end]