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): Bart Giamatti • Clive Davis • Dave Brown (rugby league, born 1913) • Italo Mus • James Campbell, 1st Baron Glenavy • Jimmy Logan • Johnny Borrell • Pamela Ribon • Pierre Fresnay • Ray Fosse • Remy de Gourmont • Richard Lugar

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