Otto Mears

This 1980 painting of Otto Mears by Tom Wisner based on a c. 1890 photo is on display in the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum in Chesapeake Beach Maryland. 

“Otto Mears (May 3, 1840 – June 24, 1931) was a famous Colorado railroad builder and entrepreneur who played a major role in the early development of southwestern Colorado.

Mears was known as the ‘Pathfinder of the San Juans’ because of his road and railroad building projects through Colorado's San Juan Mountains in the late 19th Century. He built hundreds of miles of toll roads in the rough terrain of the young state of Colorado, notably the Million Dollar Highway over Red Mountain Pass, connecting Silverton to Ouray.

… Mears moved to the East Coast and became involved in railroad and manufacturing ventures there. One of his most successful railroads on the east coast was the Chesapeake Beach Railway, which ran between Washington DC and southern Maryland.” - Wikipedia

 Wisner 1980

Perhaps the photo on which Wisner's painting is based is this picture of Means from Representative men of Colorado in the nineteenth century; 1902 .

Otto Means
Denver
Capitalist. Railroad Magnate