Engelbert Krauskopf

Engelbert Krauskopf (August 21, 1820 – July 11, 1881) was a German-American settler, gunsmith, and naturalist. Born in Bendorf, Germany, he emigrated to the United States in 1846, and became a settler of  Fredericksburg, Texas. He was trained as a cabinetmaker and gunsmith, and during the American Civil War once made a gun barrel especially for Robert E. Lee. He was also an inventor: when ammunition became scarce during the Civil War he and silversmith Adolph Lungkwitz developed a process for the manufacture of gun-caps. In 1872, he patented an improvement to a throttle valve stand with John M. Compant, and one of his last inventions was a microscope in the form of a magic lantern. An amateur botanist, he described the species Hesperaloe engelmannii (commonly known as Engelmann's red yucca).