“Melchior Huebinger & the Making of the First Automobile Atlas of Iowa" at the German American Heritage Center -- March 24.
Sunday, March 24, 2 p.m.
German American Heritage Center, 712 West Second Street, Davenport IA
With the live presentation boasting dozens of local maps, guide books, and atlases produced between 1882 and 1926, a fascinating facet of history and Iowan/German connection will be explored in Melchior Huebinger & the Making of the First Automobile Atlas of Iowa, a March program at Davenport's German American Heritage Center, and the latest afternoon event in the venue's popular "Kaffee und Kutchen" series.
Huebinger arrived as a German immigrant to Davenport in 1880 to work as a surveyor and cartographer for the Army Corps of Engineers in Rock Island. He published his first local atlas of Scott County in 1882, and later produced hundreds of local maps and atlases in his downtown Davenport shop until 1910, when he moved to Des Moines to coordinate the first ever automobile road atlas of Iowa. In his March 24 Kaffee und Kutchen program, Mike Flaherty will present a history of Huebinger’s central role in the development of modern maps of Davenport culminating in the production of the first automobile atlas of the state of Iowa in 1912. Huebinger’s career covered the transition from horse and buggy Victorian maps to modern 20th century automobile map production and is a fascinating look into how maps were made at the turn of the last century. The presentation will include the display of numerous artifacts produced by Huebinger’s companies between 1882 and 1926, all of them taken from Flaherty’s personal collection.
Mike Flaherty grew up in Davenport and graduated with a B.S. in Geography from the University of Iowa in 1988, receiving an M.S in Geographic Information Systems from the University of Redlands in 2005. He started as a geography assistant for the Census Bureau for the 1990 Census, then as a cartographer at the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) in 1991. In his 32-year career with the federal government, Flaherty was a geography assistant, cartographer, negative engraver, nautical chart compiler, bathymetrist, lithographic imaging specialist, geospatial intelligence analyst, targeting intelligence analyst, geospatial analyst, program manager, cloud development engineer, staff officer, and photogrammetrist. He made maps using the old photographic methods and made the transition to digital cartography and geographic information systems. Fearing being replaced by artificial-intelligence mapping applications, Flaherty chose to manage the production of precise satellite imagery for the last third of his career.
During his government service, Flaherty produced census maps, military topographic maps, city maps, air and naval navigational charts, photomaps, satellite image maps, precise satellite imagery products, elevation models, feature databases, and targeting graphics. After managing NGA’s precise imagery cloud transition for five years, he retired from Federal service in 2022 and moved back to Davenport. Flaherty has been collecting maps for more than 30 years, and he is a member of the Chicago Map Society, Washington Map Society and Road Map Collectors Association. Also active in the local Mississippi Valley Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America, Flaherty has two brass-era automobiles: a 1912 Galloway motor wagon, and a 1914 Ford Model T.
Melchior Huebinger & the Making of the First Automobile Atlas of Iowa will be presented at the German American Heritage Center on March 24, with the 2 p.m. “Kaffee und Kuchen” program preceded by coffee and cake at 1:30 p.m. Admission is free for Heritage Center members and $5 for non-members, and more information and reservations are available by calling (563)322-8844 and visiting GAHC.org.
