Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana
1894 - 1967

Thomas Chalmers Vint

Born in Utah, Vint attended the University of California, Berkeley. While there, he worked in the offices of A.S. Falconer and W.J. Dodd, Paul Thiene, and landscape architect Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright. Vint earned a B.S.L.A. in 1920, having spent a semester at the Ecole des Beaux Arts while enlisted during World War I. After graduating, he studied city planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Vint went to work for Daniel Ray Hull, at Yosemite, in 1922. He moved with the office to Los Angeles, then San Francisco, rising in the ranks to chief landscape architect with the National Park Service in 1927. He was responsible for the expansion of the landscape division into a design office involved in all aspects of park development, developing new standards and a series of park master plans, updated annually. In 1934 he became Chief Architect of the Branch of Plans in Designs in Washington, D.C., then Chief of Planning in 1938 and, with the start of World War II, Chief of the Division of Design and Construction. In 1950, the park service appropriated funds for improvements to its aging facilities. A member of the steering committee, Vint oversaw initial planning for the program known as Mission 66. Named Assistant Director for Design and Construction in 1961, he retired shortly thereafter.

Vint was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor conferred for meritorious service to the U.S. government. He was made a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Institute of Architects.