From Mountain Man to Entrepreneur

Uncle Dick Wootton made his mark in many ways.

“Uncle” Dick Wootton was a frontiersman and mountain man during the first half of the 19^th Century. Much of his time was spent in New Mexico and Colorado—where he settled down later in life. In 1866, Wootton hired Ute Indians to build a road along a pass between Raton, NMT and Trinidad, CO. Uncle Dick charged travelers who used the road, and built a hotel alongside it. He sold the right of way to the railroads in 1878—but they gave him a pension and a lifetime pass on the trains in compensation.