Charles Dean Bunker was born December 12, 1870 in Mendota, Illinois, the youngest child of David and Susan Jane (Spencer) Bunker. In the early 1890s the family moved to Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas, and Bunker began working at a printer's office in town.

In 1895, Bunker began working at the University of Kansas' Museum of Natural History under Lewis Lindsay Dyche. Except for a few years from 1901-1904 at the University of Oklahoma, Bunker remained at KU's museum for the rest of his career. He worked in various capacities, notably as assistant curator of recent vertebrates.

Bunker published little and did not teach classes, but he supervised several students in their work with the museum's natural history collections. He also led students on several field and collecting trips to places including Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and other parts of Kansas. He went to Alaska on a collecting trip with Dr. John H. Outland.

Bunker's research and taxidermy interests focused on birds, and in 1915 he was elected a member of the American Ornithologists' Union. A scholarship and loan fund was established in his honor with the University of Kansas Endowment Association shortly before his death to benefit financially needy students interested in natural history.

C.D. Bunker married Clara Parnell in 1897, with whom he had two daughters: Fedelma and Audrey. Bunker died on September 5, 1948. His cremated ashes were scattered from the tower of KU's Museum of Natural History.

[Information retrieved from "Charles D. Bunker" morgue file, University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.]