Johnson, Tom Loftin (18 July 1854–10 April 1911), street railway magnate and municipal reformer, was born near Georgetown, Kentucky, the son of Albert William Johnson and Helen Loftin. His father was a slaveholding planter who served as a colonel in the Confederate army. Impoverished by the Civil War, in 1868 the family settled outside of Louisville, Kentucky, near supportive friends and relatives. Before Tom was fifteen he secured an office job with a Louisville street railway company that had recently been purchased by close family friends Alfred V. and A. B. du Pont. This was the beginning of Johnson’s long business relationship with members of the wealthy family of explosive manufacturers. In 1873 Tom Johnson became superintendent of the streetcar company after having already patented the first coin fare box for streetcars. During his lifetime, the inventive Johnson was to obtain thirty-one patents....
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Johnson, Tom Loftin (1854-1911), street railway magnate and municipal reformer
Jon C. Teaford
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Otero, Miguel Antonio (1829-1882), politician and businessman
Mark L. Gardner
Otero, Miguel Antonio (21 June 1829–30 May 1882), politician and businessman, was born in Valencia, New Mexico, then a province of the Mexican Republic, the son of Don Vicente Otero and Dona Gertrudis Chaves y Argon. Vicente Otero was primarily a farmer and merchant but also filled local judicial positions under the Mexican government. Miguel Antonio Otero entered St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, in September 1841 and continued his education there until the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in May 1846, at which time his parents sent for him. In 1847 he enrolled at Pingree College, located in Fishkill on the Hudson, New York. Within a short time he became a teacher at the college and also an assistant to the principal. In 1849 Otero commenced the study of law, first with James Thayer, an attorney living in Fishkill on the Hudson, then with a General Sanford in New York City during the winter of 1849–1850, and finally with Trusten Polk in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1851 to 1852. Otero was admitted to the Missouri bar in the spring of 1852, immediately after which he returned to New Mexico, now a U.S. territory. That same year he took a herd of sheep, presumably the property of his brother, Antonio José Otero, overland to California....
