St. Louis Globe-Democrat (St Louis, Missouri) - January 29, 1905, p. 8, cols.
2-3

There was buried in Columbia on January 15 a man whose name was once well known
to the lens grinders and telescope makers of America.

Richard Brown Ganz was born in Fayette county, Pa., July 2, 1819, and died in
Columbia Saturday, January 14, 1905. He early manifested an interested in
physics, and long before he became acquainted with the properties of light he
experimented with telescopes and lens. In 1837, in a blacksmith shop in Fayette
county, Pa., he made the tube, lenses and equipments of his first instruments, a
reflector. Young Ganz worked at his beloved instrument by night until it was
finished. He then took it to a neighborhood fair, strange to say, using his
grandfather's hearse as a conveyance. At the fair he allowed persons to look
into the crude affair, the moon, of course, being reflected in the bottom
mirror.

From that time until the day of his death he made telescopes. Before coming to
Missouri in 1868, he made a beautiful 8-inch refractor for Waynesburg college in
Pennsylvania, which is still in use there. At that period of his life Mr. Ganz
had thrust upon him in unrecognized form an opportunity, which if he had taken
advantage of it, would have made him famous in the scientific world. He was
offered a position with Alvin Clark & sons, afterward the best known telescope
makers in the world. But the allurements of a Missouri farm were too strong for
him and he came to Boone county.

There, however, he continued to make telescopes which he sold to many
institutions of learning. The most remarkable feature of his work was not only
its fineness, but the fact that he made every part of each instrument and the
machinery with which he worked, with his ow hands. In 1896, when in his 78th
year, he made four beautiful instruments, a picture of the largest, a 7.7-inch
refractor, being given here. He ground and polished the lens for this
instrument on a home-made lathe, and every part of the intricate equatorial
mounting is the work of his own fingers.

One of Mr. Ganz's instruments is in the observatory of Dr. Irl R. Hicks at his
fine suburban home. Mr. Ganz's oldest daughter, Mrs. Carrie E. Iams, lives at
819 King's highway, and is a teacher in the Harrison school.

Columbia Missouri Herald (Columbia, Missouri) - January 20, 1905, p. 6, col. 3

R.B. Gans.—R.B. Gans died at his home at 1308 Paris Road, Saturday evening,
January 14, 1905, and was buried buried [sic] in the Columbia cemetery Monday
afternoon. Rev. C.H. Winders of the Christian church conducted the services at
the home. The deceased was eighty-five years of age. He leaves a wife,
eighty-one years old, five children, eighteen grandchildren and four great
grandchildren. The children are: Mrs. Iams and Miss Ida Gans, both of whom are
teaching school in St. Louis; Geo. Gans, of Columbia; Mrs. Mary M. Allton, of
Hinton; and Mrs. Alice G. Self, of Columbia, who is making her home with her
mother on Paris road. Mr. Gans was in many respects one of the most remarkable
men of this county. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1819 and move to Boone
county in 1868. He attained national fame as a telescope and lens maker, the
firs telescope that he made, sixty years old, having been sold to the Waynesburg
College, Pennsylvania, for a large sum. He made a number of other excellent
instruments, sold to various institutions. In the workshop at his home still
remain three fine refractors.