John E. (John Elstner) Gunckel

John Elstner Gunckel (1846–1915) was an Ohio writer, local historian, and railroad passenger agent whose work was closely tied to Toledo. Sources identify him as a passenger agent with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, and also as the founder of Toledo's Newsboys association movement in the 1890s, an effort that became a major part of his public reputation.

He is best known as the author of The Early History of the Maumee Valley and Boyville: A History of Fifteen Years' Work Among Newsboys. Those books show the two sides of his work especially clearly: one preserves regional history, and the other grows out of his hands-on involvement with boys living and working on Toledo's streets.

Available biographical sources also describe him as born in Germantown, Ohio, and educated at Oberlin College before he settled in Toledo. Taken together, his writing and civic work suggest an author who cared less about literary showmanship than about recording community memory and trying to improve everyday life.