Lois Jotter, botanist and Grand Canyon exploration pioneer, died on April 30, 2013, at age 99.
Lois Jotter (later Lois Jotter Cutter) died on April 30, 2013, at the age of 99. Her long life spanned from the early twentieth century through the modern environmental era, allowing her to witness—and comment upon—the vast changes wrought on the Colorado River ecosystem she had helped document as a young scientist in 1938, including the construction of Glen Canyon Dam and its effects on the canyon's native vegetation.
Following her historic Grand Canyon expedition, Jotter went on to earn her doctorate in botany and pursued a career as an educator and researcher, teaching for decades at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She remained a respected voice on canyon botany throughout her life, returning to the Colorado River as an honored guest on an 'Old Timers' Trip' in 1994 at age 80.
Her death was noted by river-running historians, botanists, and Grand Canyon conservation organizations who continued to celebrate her as one of the first women to run the canyon and the first to scientifically document its plant communities. Her legacy endures in the historical record of Grand Canyon exploration and in the botanical baseline data she helped establish.