Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was a pioneer who created a place for herself in the world of architecture and design. She was hired by the Fred Harvey Company–the hospitality firm that built hotels, shops, rest areas, and restaurants along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe rail lines in the Southwest.
The West was still a frontier. Colter saw that new buildings needed to be organic and reflect the culture and the landscape of the area. She prided herself on having each building tell its own story. Depending on the location, she created a unique and fitting style.
This was forward thinking for the time, but it fit well with the Harvey House culture. Staff member Herman Schweizer was busy acquiring art and relics from the Native American and Spanish cultures for display in the restaurants and hotels.
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Visiting Her Work
While many of her buildings no longer exist, visitors to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon today can see multiple examples of her work: Hopi House, Hermit’s Rest, Lookout Studio, and Desert View Watchtower. As a group, these buildings were designated a National Historic Landmark District on May 28, 1987.
The primary hotels in the area are El Tovar and Bright Angel Lodge. El Tovar, the grandest of the hotels, was not designed by Colter but she had a hand in decorating it.
At Bright Angel Lodge, she planned and decorated the original section of the hotel. She designed the original section of Bright Angel Lodge. Visitors who venture to the bottom of the canyon (accessible by mule train) will find Phantom Ranch, for which she was the architect and designer.
Her particular design became known as National Park Service Rustic and was copied throughout the National Park system.
Early Life
Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (1869-1958) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1869. Her parents were Irish immigrants—her father a merchant and her mother a milliner. As the family adapted to life in a new country, they moved from Pennsylvania to Texas and Colorado before putting down roots in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1880.
St. Paul was a young and dynamic city but still had vestiges of its frontier past. According to an article by Meredith Gaglio on Pioneering Women of Architecture, Colter was likely influenced by the western feel of the place and also by the nearby location of the Dakota people who lived on the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation west of the city.
A separate story written by Gaglio about Colter reports that Colter’s uncle brought to the family a series of brightly colored sketches from Sioux Indians. The family kept them for a time, but when Mary and her mother and sister were about to move households, her mother suggested throwing them out. Colter volunteered to take them. She kept them for many years. Clearly the Native American art work spoke to her.
School
She attended St. Paul High School, where she particularly loved art class. When she graduated from high school in 1883, there were few places where women could work. Colter did the predictable thing and took a teaching job.
When her father died three years later, her mother helped Mary Colter pursue a bigger dream. Mrs. Colter, Mary, and her sister, who suffered ill health, all moved to Oakland, California, so that Mary could attend the California School of Design.
When Mary Colter enrolled, the design school was newly established by the San Francisco Art Association. Students were primarily instructed in drawing and painting, but Colter took on a part-time job with a local architecture firm where she learned about the process of building design.
At that time, architects in California were not expected to be licensed, so when Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter graduated in 1891, she was qualified for both design and architecture work.
Turned to Teaching
Unfortunately for her, architectural jobs were hard to find, particularly for a woman. She and the family moved back to St. Paul. She was offered a teaching position at Stout Manual Training School in Menomonie, Wisconsin, about 100 miles from St. Louis.
A few years later, she was hired by a progressive high school in St. Paul. Once resettled in St. Paul, she became active in many organizations. She was invited to lecture at the University of Minnesota, and she wrote occasionally for the St. Paul Daily Globe. She read widely and focused on archaeology and history.
The school respected her interests and talent. She had support for teaching art to her students in a manner that worked for her. Her students won design awards at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Later more students took home honors from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
Working for the Harvey Company
Authorities on Colter’s life think that Minnie Harvey Huckel was the connection that brought Mary Colter to the attention of the Fred Harvey Company. Minnie was Fred Harvey’s daughter who was married to John Frederick Huckel who became vice president of the Fred Harvey Company.
Beginning in 1902, Colter received freelance assignments that grew over time. In 1910, the Harvey Company hired her for a staff position. At that point, the company headquarters was in Kansas City, so Colter kept an office there, though she traveled a great deal for her work.
Indian Building
One of her first assignments was to design the Indian Building and Museum that was adjacent to the Hotel Alvarado in Albuquerque (1902). Much of her design there had to do with how the Native American art would be displayed. At Herman Schweizer’s request, she also created areas where the artists could work.
From there, the Harvey House Company directed her to work on the buildings that were being created along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Particularly in this environment, Colter saw that she needed to use indigenous builders using local materials to achieve the look and feeling that she wanted.
Colter’s Work at the Grand Canyon
The development around the rim of the Grand Canyon came about after the Harvey House Company went into the tourism business. Basing the new part of the company at the La Fonda in Santa Fe, the Indian Detours, the Harvey tourism department, offered tourists 1-3 day trips. The Grand Canyon became a popular destination.
Today several of her buildings, still stand along the rim of the Grand Canyon, and the area is a National Historic Landmark District: Hopi House, Hermit’s Rest, Lookout Studio, and Desert View Watchtower.
The older hotels in the area are El Tovar and Bright Angel Lodge. Colter had a hand in designing the original section of Bright Angel Lodge, where she designed a geologic fireplace. It features rocks hauled from the canyon floor and arranged in the same order as the strata of the canyon’s walls.
At the bottom of the canyon and accessible only on foot or by mule train, Phantom Ranch, was totally her work. She wanted to work with wood and rock already available in the area, so she used fieldstone and rough-hewn wood and hired local artisans to carry out her plan. The design worked perfectly for the site, and this was the beginning of National Park Service Rustic.
Southwest Style
From the beginning, Colter’s work picked up on the land and the area where the building would be. Working with Schweizer who was acquiring an increasing number of artifacts, Colter created buildings that looked like they belonged in the Southwest. Schweizer provided her with the items he collected as he traveled to Indian villages and Mexican-American towns.
Many of her buildings featured sandstone walls, low ceilings with log beams that sometimes still had twigs attached. If a building was to be set into a rock formation, she made certain it fit in with the natural surroundings. She often used small windows placed high so that they gave off carefully planned shafts of light. These added to the beauty of the buildings.
Moved Colter to Other Buildings
The need for more buildings along the Santa Fe railroad continued to grow. Management soon pulled Colter off the Grand Canyon project to work on some of the grander hotels they along the Santa Fe line. The El Navajo Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico (1923) was one of her big projects, but she also designed La Posada in Winslow, Arizona.
The Harvey House Company acquired the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe in 1925. They used Colter for the design and decorating of the hotel and its expansion.
La Posada
Colter considered La Posada to be her masterpiece, but it hit on hard times shortly after she died. The hotel closed in 1957, and the Santa Fe transformed the building into offices. Much of the furniture designed by Colter was sold at auction.
In 1994, a National Preservation for Historic Trust member, Allan Affeldt and his wife, artist Tina Mion, read that the building was in danger of being torn down. Affeldt began negotiations that took three years, but by 1997, he owned the hotel. No bank would loan them money for the renovation, so the California couple moved to Winslow, Arizona.
In 1997 and began the renovation themselves, one room at a time. By later that year, they could rent to a limited number of guests. Today the La Posada is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. People travel from all over to visit the Mission Revival building and its southwestern-themed grounds.
Colter’s Other Work
In Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the Harvey Company had a full-service designer. While she generally worked on planning a building or choosing decorations for one, she was also called upon for other projects. One of them was to design the Mimbreňo China and flatware that was used on the Santa Fe Super Chief that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles. The food service was run by Harvey House, so their reliance on their long-time designer was perfect.
Later Life
When her mother died in 1909, Mary Colter assumed full responsibility for her sister who had been unwell for many years. She and her sister moved to a house in Altadena, California (near Pasadena), and they lived there for a time.
In 1948, Colter retired from the Fred Harvey Company after 46 years of service. After retirement, she moved back to the Santa Fe area and began to contemplate what to do with her collections. She wanted a place that would keep the artifacts together. Mesa Verde National Paark was among the places that would do so. Colter left her pottery and artifacts in their care.
She continued to live in Santa Fe until her death in 1956.
Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame
According to the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame, Colter was responsible for 21 projects, including La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, La Posada in Winslow, and the Union Railroad Stations in Kansas City, St. Louis and Los Angeles.