Though he spent time in developments in Pasadena, and was even once the Chairman of the Pasadena Board of Education, he wandered extensively about the foothills conjuring ideas about the development of a scenic mountain railroad to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains. This idea had been brought up many times by the locals of Pasadena and Sierra Madre alike. It was not until he was introduced to the millionaire Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe by Perry M. Green, president of the Pasadena First National Bank, that any idea of funding such a venture came to the fore. Lowe retired to Pasadena from Norristown, Pa., and moved into a . mansion on Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena in 1890.