Ado Hunnius, Great Plains cartographer.

Abstract

The United States Army was a major force in discovering, exploring, mapping, and describing the American West. Army expeditions often included astronomers, surveyors, botanists, and other nonmilitary specialists. Carl Julius Adolph Hunnius came to the United States as a youth during the Civil War. Upon arrival, he joined the Union Army and served in the Charleston, South Carolina, area. Hunnius was content to perform the usual military duties expected of a private, but in the course of drawing sketches of enemy troop positions, his talent for mapping and surveying was discovered. Soon thereafter, Hunnius was attached to the Army's head engineer at Charleston, planning and supervising the construction of fortifications in the area. Little is known of Hunnius's life immediately following his Civil War service. In 1867 he again enlisted in the Army; this time he was sent to Fort Larned, Kansas. As before, he did nothing to draw attention to his talents, but some of his drawings were shown to officers. As before, Hunnius was put to work drawing plans and surveys. In time, he was transferred to the office of the chief engineer of the Department of the Missouri at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There he drew maps from the survey notes of Army exploring expeditions on the Great Plains. Following his discharge in 1869, Hunnius was hired as a civilian employee of the chief engineer at Fort Leavenworth. He continued to produce high quality maps and charts, and in 1876 he participated in two expeditions into the Indian Territory and Texas. Funding shortages caused the Army to terminate Hunnius's position in 1876. He then operated a combination toy and book business in Leavenworth until 1909. Hunnius is best known for the high quality of his maps of the Great Plains. Many of his drawings show physical features on the plains prior to large-scale settlement. Hunnius's many talents made his services valuable to the Army on the frontier in the 1870s.