May20

Loretto.

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the original staircase

the current stairs

the story

The Loretto Chapel’s miraculous spiral staircase in Santa Fe

The Loretto Chapel is a former Roman Catholic Church in Sante Fe, New Mexico that is now a privately owned museum and wedding chapel. It’s known for its spiral staircase the “ Miraculous Stair”, which rises 20 feet while making two full turns, all without support of a break or central pole…it’s held together by wooden pegs, no glue, nails or other hardware…33 stairs, noted to be the age of Christ at the time of his death. Built between 1877-1881. (story has it a mysterious stranger appeared, built the staircase and then disappeared without collecting pay, the Sisters of Loretto believed the mysterious builder was Saint Joseph himself)….railings were added in 1887.

the legend

the model

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the link to the Loretto chapel and the stairs’ history:

https://www.lorettochapel.com/our-story?srsltid=AfmBOop4APIFnYxkEEusChD_kK-t3ngYq-isG7B1m34vqw1YwZNTpPrN

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“the difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible Is what takes a little longer.’

-fridtjof nansen

 

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source credits: Loretto Chapel

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA – May 2026

 

 

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31 responses »

  5. This is über-amazing. love stories like this one. To me it’s a wonder.
    “The difficult is what takes a little time. The impossible is what takes a little longer.” Fridtjof Nansen

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  20. The precise time frame of the serpentine stairway’s installation is known to have occurred between the spring equinox March 20 1880, the day after the Feast of St. Joseph and two or three weeks prior to that year’s summer solstice of June the 21st. In Catholic terms circa the end of Santa Fe’s Feast of Corpus Christi. Nine days after the end of their novena on St. Joseph day itself Archbishop Lamy was given the last sacrament but survived. The Archbishop’s nephew and namesake shot and killed one of his uncle’s French architects on September 1st, 1879 in Santa Fe’s Exchange Hotel. However it was the son of architect Antoine Mouly who died of typhoid on a Sunday evening at eleven o’clock that precipitated the Sisters of Loretto and their choir loft access problem.
    For the workers access of getting down to the choir loft’s floor from the Chapel’s attic had to be closed off for security and other reasons sometime just prior to Retail Mouly’s death on 11/16/1879. His father Antoine had almost immediately started to go blind in 1873, most likely due to heavy metal and grain alcohol poisoning, was escorted back to France circa 1874 and never returned eventually dying from pneumonia in January of some still unknown year.
    At present no Catholics can actually wed there for some ominously bad reason or other, at least not with a priest present. The Loretto Chapel’s wedding planning site makes that quite clear. Which suggests some fools may actually be trying to brand that scientifically miraculous stairway as a heretical object. Likely due to the circa 1882 rumors that mistakenly branded that wooden relic as an Apache funeral stairway that the installer stole. We know that Lt. John Bourke viewed the stairway on Easter Monday of 1881
    The mysterious stranger was clearly not a carpenter for his skill set was quite obviously that of a cooper or bucket maker with a side hustle of water tower and cistern repair. His mule was so diminutive that it was easily mistaken for a donkey. Thus even the breed of mule is likely deducible with great precision since it could not be ridden. Part of the reason the stranger walked across the desert rather than ride the beast. He had to have had a walking staff marked off in what would pass for cubits and hands just to ply his trade.
    It’s also worth knowing that it wouldn’t be at all difficult to remove that staircase as it presently exists in its entirety and get it out the front doors to safety. Since even I could do that all by my lonesome in less than the 80 or so days that it took the stranger to install it. He installed it by soaking its wood to somewhat lessen its curve and straighten its uppermost part out so that he could get the “wound spring” torsional forces properly balanced just so.

    All of which is why people, especially practicing Catholics, need to start being a lot more precise with their use of the facts. Because there a whole lot of atheists who are pushing for that stairway to be hauled off to some hazardous waste disposal site in the dead of night.

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