top there was a 40-room chalet. In 1894, he added an 80-room hotel, the Echo Mountain House, and the observatory. By 1896, the upper division was finished into Grand Canyon at Ye Alpine Tavern. Altogether there were some seven miles (11.265 km) of track. Lowe lost the venture to receivership in 1899, which left him impoverished. The MLR became part of Henry Huntington's recently formed Pacific Electric Railway (also known as "Red Car") in 1902. The only part of the railway property that remained Lowe's was the observatory on Echo Mountain. It boasted a 16-inch (406.4 mm) reflective telescope from which many astronomical finds were made. It was blown down in a gale in 1928. The railway fell in stages to the Echo Mountain House fire, a kitchen fire on February 4, 1900; a wind-aided brush fire on Echo Mountain in 1905, which wiped out everything except the observatory and the astronomer's cabin; a Rubio Canyon flash flood in 1909 that destroyed the Pavilion; and an electrical fire that razed the Tavern in 1936. The line was abandoned after the Los Angeles deluge of March 1938. Death and legacy Lowe died at his daughter's Pasadena home on January 16, 1913, at age 80, after a few years of failing health. Lowe was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California. His wife Leontine died a year later and was buried next to him. Also buried near the Lowe monument are his two sons, Leon and Sobieski, and other family members. Many of the family members returned to the East Coast. A nearby monument has been separately erected for his son Thaddeus and his wife. Thaddeus Lowe's granddaughter Pancho Lowe Barnes was also an aviation pioneer. The Mount Lowe Railway was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1993. The mountain itself still bears his name. Lowe is a member of the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. Lowe Army Heliport at Fort Rucker, Alabama is named in his honor. His house in Norristown, Pennsylvania, at 823 W. Main Street, still exists. Lowe is featured on a New Hampshire historical marker (number 19) along U.S. Route 2 in Jefferson. Thaddeus Lowe in popular culture Lowe was portrayed by Stuart Whitman in the movie High Flying Spy in 1972, produced by Walt Disney Productions. The story of Lowe's Balloon Corps was the subject of an episode of