Mary Colter

One of the joys of my local newspaper the Star Tribune is the history column by Curt Brown that runs on Sundays. I've mentioned his work twice before (here and here).

Today he wrote about Mary Colter, 1869–1958, who was the architect of multiple buildings in the Grand Canyon National Park. She moved to Saint Paul with her family at age 11, went to school here, taught in the public schools for 15 years, and, after leaving for her long life and career, was buried in Oakland Cemetery just north of downtown.

In Brown's words, 

In 1922, they were going to name the new lodging [in the Grand Canyon] after National Park champion and 26th President Theodore Roosevelt. Then the project’s pioneering female architect from St. Paul spoke up.

“A woman ahead of her time, Mary Colter had other ideas,” according to a Grand Canyon pamphlet. “The company’s architect, with her characteristic independence, preferred the more romantic, mysterious-sounding ‘Phantom Ranch.’ ”

Later in the article, Brown writes:

Her Grand Canyon structures and Southwestern hotel designs eschewed the American architectural trends of the time that...“superimposed” Europe’s classical Roman columns “on the American landscape.... Mary Colter was more interested in rediscovering the cultural heritage of the region than in imitating European styles” [quotes from Virginia Grattan in her 1980 book, Mary Colter: Builder Upon Red Earth].

She often trekked to remote corners of the Southwest to study Indian ruins and artifacts.

Here are the Grand Canyon buildings Colter designed:


Hopi House, 1905


Hermit's Rest, 1914 (I think this is the only one of Colter's buildings I've seen in person).


Phantom Ranch, 1922. According to Colter's Wikipedia entry, the design of this building "became a de facto model for subsequent National Park Service and Civilian Conservation Corps structures, influencing the look and feel of an entire genre of parkitecture, often called National Park Service Rustic. Her structures at the Grand Canyon set the precedent for using on-site materials and bold, large-scale design elements."


Watchtower, 1932


Bright Angel Lodge, 1935

2019 is the 100th anniversary of the Grand Canyon as a National Park and the 150th birthday of Mary Colter.