Otto Mears

[3] He built hundreds of miles of toll roads in the rough terrain of the young state of Colorado,[4] notably the Million Dollar Highway over Red Mountain Pass, connecting Silverton to Ouray.

Mears arrived and found himself homeless, but he had befriended the owner of a local rooming house during the journey by ship from Panama, and she and her husband took him in.

[7] The San Francisco economy was booming due to the California Gold Rush, and Mears found work milking cows and serving as a clerk and a teamster.

[7] Mears then served in the 1st California Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War, fighting a Navajo uprising under the leadership of Kit Carson.

[9] In 1873, Mears was one of the negotiators that helped secure a deal with Chief Ouray, requiring his people to move away from the "Red Mountains" and resettle in a reservation in another part of the Colorado Territory.

[10] A wheat farmer in Saguache, Mears first built a road over Poncha Pass to gain access to the flour mill at Nathrop, which served the Leadville market.

[14] One of his most successful railroads on the east coast was the Chesapeake Beach Railway, which ran between Washington DC and southern Maryland.