OTTO C. PERRY PAPERS

Otto Conrad Perry was born December 21, 1894 in Kansas City, Missouri, the first child of Frank and Clara Maude Perry. In about 1896, the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where Perry attended McKinley School. His eighth grade graduation marked the end of his formal education.

In 1907, health concerns for Perry’s younger brother, Elmer, prompted the family to move to Denver, Colorado, where in 1910 Perry began working for Western Union, delivering telegrams on his bicycle. He developed into an expert cyclist, occasionally covering a 200-mile round trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming or to Pueblo Colorado on weekends. About 1912, Perry accepted a position using his bicycle to deliver special delivery letters for the U.S. Post Office.

Perry’s passion for photographing railroads developed about 1913. Initially, he used his father’s box camera to photograph railroad equipment, but by 1915, Perry had purchased his own camera, a Kodak 3A, which used postcard-sized film. He experimented briefly with a glass plate camera in 1917, but returned to roll film by 1918.

Called into military service in World War I, Perry served with the 148th Field Artillery. Although stationed in England and France, the war ended before he could be sent to the front lines.

After the War, Perry became a regular mail carrier and purchased the first of his many Graflex cameras. Higher shutter speeds afforded by the Graflex enabled him to photograph railroads in action as well as still photos. At first, Perry pursued his avocation riding a large, Harley Davidson motorcycle. He later moved up to a Model-T, but he was best-known for traveling in a 1935 Ford V-8, which he purchased new, and drove over 300,000 miles. Although Perry produced most of his photographs in Colorado and neighboring states, he eventually visited and photographed in all 48 of the continental United States.

Shortly before America’s involvement in World War II, Perry’s railroad photography resulted in his arrest as a suspected spy in Woodward, Oklahoma. Quite upset by the incident, Perry sought to sue the town's officials. Apparently, he was unable to obtain the services of a lawyer willing to pursue the case and the matter was dropped.

Perry retired from the Post Office June 30, 1957, though he continued to drive a truck delivering parcel post packages and transporting mail between post offices. Perry lived to see his 76th birthday, but passed away at his Denver home two days later on December 23, 1970. Perry’s heirs agreed to place over 20,000 of his negatives with the Denver Public Library’s Western History Collection, where they have been cataloged and preserved.