Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (April 4, 1869 – January 8, 1958) 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. Early life and education Mary Colter was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her family moved to Colorado and Texas before settling down in St. Paul, Minnesota, when Mary was eleven, the town she considered to be her home. In 1880 the town of St. Paul was boasting a population of 40,000 people and a large minority population of Sioux Indians. A friend of hers gave her some drawings of Sioux art. This is the point where her fascination with the Native American cultures began. The Indian community was then ravaged by a smallpox epidemic so her mother tried to burn all of the Native American things they had for fear that it would get her family sick. Mary, however, hid those drawings from her mother and so prevented them from being burned. Mary also kept these same Sioux drawings for the rest of her life. There she graduated high school in 1883 at the age of 14. After her father died in 1886, Colter attended the California School of Design (now the San Francisco Art Institute) until 1891, where she studied art and design. She then moved back to St. Paul and taught art, drafting, and architecture for some years. Colter taught at the Mechanic Arts High School for fifteen years and lectured at the University Extension School. Career By one account, in 1901 Minnie Harvey Huckel helped Colter land a summer job with her family's Fred Harvey Company (operator of the famous railstop Harvey House restaurants), decorating the Indian Building at the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque (since demolished). Colter began working full-time for the company in 1910, moving from interior designer to architect. For the next 38 years, Colter served as chief architect and decorator for the Fred Harvey Company. As one