Super Chief Chicago-Los Angeles rail service, begun in 1936 by the Santa Fe Railroad. Colter, herself by then an Indian art expert, based her designs on 1100 CE Mimbres patterns excavated by her friends Harriet and Cornelius Cosgrove at the Swarts Ruin in New Mexico from 1924 to 1927. Mimbreño china was produced by the Onondaga Pottery Co. of Syracuse, New York under its better-known trade name, Syracuse China, until 1970. The luxury Super Chief and business class dining services were discontinued after the train was turned over to Amtrak in May 1971 (today the Southwest Chief covers the route). Later that year Mimbreño plates and pieces became available to ordinary individuals for the first time, disposed of in two large public offerings. Mimbreño railroad china remains avidly and competitively collected, with single plates selling for many hundreds of dollars (a line of authorized reproductions has been sold since 1989). Legacy Colter retired to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1948. She donated her collection of Native American pottery and Indian relics to Mesa Verde National Park. Four of her Grand Canyon National Park buildings are protected within the Mary Jane Colter National Historic Landmark District. See also Mary Colter buildings Women in architecture List of California women architects References Further reading Colter, Mary Elizabeth Jane, et al. Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest. United States, Princeton Archit.Press, 2002. Grattan, Virginia L. Mary Colter, Builder upon the Red Earth (1992). Print. Doumato, Lamia. Mary Colter (1987). Print. Weigle, Marta. "Exposition and Mediation: Mary Colter, Erna Fergusson, and the Santa Fe/Harvey Popularization of the Native Southwest, 1902–1940." Frontiers (Boulder) 12.3 (1992): 116. Web. Colter, Mary Elizabeth Jane, Janet R Balsom, Fred Harvey (Firm), and Grand Canyon Association. Manual for Drivers and Guides: Descriptive of the Indian Watchtower at Desert View and Its Relation, Architecturally, to the Prehistoric Ruins of the Southwest. Grand Canyon, Arizona: Grand Canyon Association, 2015. Matusik, Barbara Ann. “The Phenomena of Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter: Creating an Architectural Sense of Place on Grand Canyon.” University of Florida, 2017. Yolonda, Youngs. “Lookout Studio – Nature, Culture and History at the Grand Canyon.” Arizona State University. Nature, Culture and History at the Grand Canyon © 2021. All Rights Reserved. Accessed October 17, 2021. https://grcahistory.org/sites/south-rim/lookout-studio/. External links Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter Archive images of Gallup's El Navajo NPR two-part series on Colter 1869 births 1958 deaths American