Dudley Page Cotton, Jr. of Tucson, Ariz. and Bremen, Maine, a former Westport resident, died March 8 from complications following surgery. He was 77.
Dudley P. Cotton: Staples graduate.
Contributed photoBorn in Damariscotta, Maine on Oct. 26, 1936, son of Dudley Page and Josephine Norris Cotton, his childhood was spent on his parents’ mink farm in Bremen, Maine, where he attended the one-room Medomak School. During the war years, he lived with his family aboard the “Seamaid,” a 62-foot yawl, in Portland Harbor. He graduated from Staples High School in Westport in 1955.
After two years’ service in the U.S. Naval Reserve, he attended the University of Arizona, graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1965 as a member of the first class of the Department of Architecture when classes were held at an old Safeway store.
A few years later, he earned a Master’s degree in structural engineering. Holding registration for both architecture and engineering, he remained in Tucson for the remainder of his life, developing a successful engineering practice. He was hired by the University of Arizona to teach engineering to architectural students—a position he held for 30 years.
