Otis B. Gunn

OTIS B. GUNN was a native of Massachusetts, born at Montague, October 27, 1828, and before he came west as a railroad engineer, had served as rodman on the Hoosac Tunnel Railroad and superintendent of the construction work of the line between Rochester and Niagara Falls. In 1853 he was appointed division engineer in the building of the Toledo, Wabash and Western, and followed railroad construction westward until he settled at Wyandotte, Kansas, in 1857. He was a member of the 1861 State Senate, and while thus serving was appointed major of the Fourth Kansas, later the Tenth Kansas Infantry. Resigning in May, 1862, he resumed railroad work, being connected, at various times, with the Kansas City and Cameron, Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Central Branch of the Union Pacific, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas. Of the road last named he built 600 miles; also constructed the bridge across the Missouri River at Atchison, and in 1876 constructed the union depot in Kansas City. In view of these unadorned facts, it is perhaps needless to add that Mr. Gunn was one of the leading engineers of the West. He died in Kansas City, February 18, 1901, and was buried in Oak Grove, Lawrence.