Loretto Chapel and the Miraculous Staircase

The Sisters of Loretto established an academy in Santa Fe and built a Gothic Revival chapel during the 1870s. When access to the choir loft presented a difficult architectural problem, a compact spiral staircase was constructed without a conventional central support.

A devotional tradition held that the sisters prayed a novena to Saint Joseph and that an unknown carpenter then arrived, completed the staircase and disappeared without payment. The builder’s identity and the exact construction history remain debated, but the staircase became one of Santa Fe’s best-known religious landmarks.

The Staircase uses the legend as the centre of a coming-of-age story about a Methodist girl living among Catholic sisters. Faith, prayer, prejudice and the possibility of miracle materially shape the novel rather than serving as incidental background.