Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (1869-1958) was hailed as "the best-known unknown architect in the national parks." Mary Jane Colter left her mark on the profession and on our parks.
According to a report by Curbed, Mary Jane Colter has long been an almost invisible figure in national park history. Each year, as many as five million visitors pass through the collection of buildings she designed or decorated in the Grand Canyon National Park. Most go without a hint of the brilliant, stubborn, chain-smoking visionary behind the creations.
Colter graduated from the California School of Design in San Francisco. She also became an apprentice to a local architect in 1890--when the U.S. census counted only twenty two female architects in the entire country. She eventually returned to her hometown in St. Paul, Minnesota for a high school teaching job.
Change came after she met the daughter of the founder of the Fred Harvey Company. Colter was hired to decorate the Indian Building in Albuquerque. She was consequently given a permanent job, after launching a relationship with the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe railway, for Harvey and Santa Fe had forged an unusual, mutually beneficial partnership with the late architect. Harvey operated hotels, restaurants, and shops across the Santa Fe system, which were built and owned by the railway, the Curbed report states.
Architect Colter was a chain smoker. She was also a stickler for authentic materials and motifs, which she deployed with theatrical flair. She liked to imagine a backstory for her projects and gave them a convincing patina.
Colter designed many of the best-known structures in Grand Canyon National Park, including El Navajo Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico (1918, expanded 1923), Alvarado Hotel and Indian Building in Albuquerque, and the El Navajo in Gallup, Harvey House. She also made over the Santa Fe's La Fonda Hotel and many more.
According to Yahoo News, Colter's masterpieces accommodated visitors with design that reinforced, even defined, a sense of place, drawing on a mixture of Native American, Hispanic, and rustic styles rooted in the region's past.
