Katherine Stinson Otero

The panel stands on the road to the Santa Fe airport, but her Santa Fe years were spent on the ground. She arrived with tuberculosis contracted during her war service and recovered at the Sunmount sanatorium, where she met Dorothy McKibbin, a fellow patient. Her houses drew on local materials and customs; the adobe she designed for McKibbin, built for about $10,000 around McKibbin's collection of old doors, is on the National Register. In 1927 she married Miguel A. Otero Jr., a fellow flier and later a judge, and they lie together in Santa Fe National Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Katherine Stinson Otero 1891-1977 Katherine was the fourth American woman to earn a pilot's license and the first female skywriter. She overcame pioneering aviator Max Lillie's reluctance to teach her to fly, and became the "Flying Schoolgirl," nicknamed for her youthful looks, small stature, and derring-do. Katherine marveled spectators, rolling her plane, skywriting at night with flares attached to its wings, and maneuvering risky loop_the_loops. With her family she founded the Stinson Aviation Company, designed aircraft, and operated a flight school. She was the first aviatrix to fly the Orient and set a record in 1917 for the longest West Coast solo flight.....Other side Official Scenic Historic Marker ...Continued The military twice denied her permission to fly in World War I, although she was already flying a U.S. mail carrier. Instead she drove an ambulance for the French Red Cross. Katherine contracted tuberculosis and sought treatment in Santa Fe where she embarked on a new career designing notable Spanish Pueblo Revival– style homes. Her clients included Manhattan Project gatekeeper Dorothy McKibbin. Katherine married airman and future judge, Miguel Otero, Jr., and the couple remained in Santa Fe until their deaths. They are buried together at Santa Fe National Cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Palace of the Governors — 8.3 mi
  The long adobe on the north side of the Santa Fe plaza, called the oldest public building in continuous use in the country, though its own founding date is in dispute.
• Bandelier National Monument — 15 mi
  Rooms carved into soft volcanic tuff in Frijoles Canyon, named for a Swiss scholar who was led there in 1880 by a man from Cochiti Pueblo.
• Fuller Lodge — 21 mi
  The upright-log dining hall of a boys' ranch school, which fed and housed the Manhattan Project after the Army bought the school in 1942.
• Pecos National Historical Park — 22 mi
  The red walls of a 1717 mission church inside the foundations of a far larger one, beside the kiva Pecos people dug in front of the old church during the revolt of 1680.

More markers nearby

• San Isidro Catholic Church — 3.7 mi
• Agua Fria — 4.2 mi
• Golondrinas Old Cienega Village Museum — 4.6 mi
• Santa Fe — 5.2 mi