[ZIMPEL, Charles F., surveyor, engineer, cartographer, architect. Probably came to New Orleans as the surveyor and engineer for the course of the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad (now the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line); also spent the years 1831-1832 compiling surveys for the production of the map “Topographical Map of New Orleans and Its Vicinity . . . “, which he had engraved in Prussia, probably his native country. The map includes the first survey of the town of Carrollton (now the upper limits of New Orleans) done by Zimpel. In 1834, he is listed as deputy city surveyor and engineer. Zimpel was the architect for four New Orleans buildings, all designed and built in the 1830s: the Bank of Orleans, Banks Arcade, Bishop’s City Hotel, and Orleans Cotton Press. He also remodeled the , Charity Hospital building as the State House. Apparently left New Orleans by the late 1830s.
By 1864, he was in Constantinople, where as “Engineer in Chief” he drew up plans for the route of the propised Jaffa to Jerusalem railway line.
J.A.M. Sources: Louisiana Courier, November 30, 1833, February 20, 1836; New Orleans Bee, February 20, 1836; Friends of the Cabildo, New Orleans Architecture, vol. II: The American Sector (1972); Benjamin Moore Norman, Norman’s New Orleans and Environs; Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Impressions Respecting New Orleans, ed. by Samuel Wilson, Jr. (1951); John Smith Kendall, History of New Orleans, II (1922).]