Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-1905), American financier. Born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, Yerkes set up the streetcar lines in Chicago in the late 1880s. He later headed the syndicate that built the London Underground. Yerkes donated some of his fortune to the University of Chicago to build the Yerkes Observatory. The Observatory had what was one of the world's largest refracting telescopes. Painted by Jan Van Beers c. 1893.