Adolph Lietz (1860-1935) was born in Germany, and began in business in San Francisco in 1882. By the 1920s, the firm was manufacturing and marketing a wide range of instruments for surveying, geodesy, and navigation. Lietz ceased production in 1947, but remained a distributor for other manufacturers. Lietz moved to Kansas City in 1978, and was acquired by Sokkia in 1984.
