Mary Colter

Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was an American architect and designer. She was one of the very few female American architects in her day. She was the designer of many landmark buildings and spaces for the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad, notably in Grand Canyon National Park. Her work had enormous influence as she helped to create a style, blending Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival architecture with Native American motifs and Rustic elements, that became popular throughout the Southwest. Colter was a perfectionist, who spent a lifetime advocating and defending her aesthetic vision in a largely male-dominated field.

4 April 1869

Born on the same birth day (4 April): Amanda Righetti • Dettmar Cramer • Eric André • Evgeny Artyukhin • Frank Truitt • Gil Hodges • Henry Fotheringham • Louis Archambault • Owen Suffolk • Richard Lugar • Robert Bertrand • Ronnie Masterson • Stephen Storace

Born in the same month (April 1869): Albert Roussel • Gustav Vigeland • Hans Poelzig • Harvey Cushing • Henri Désiré Landru • Hughie Jennings • Levon Shant • Sergey Chaplygin