We were on
the road by 6:15 a.m. this morning headed 2 hours back east to Butte, MT. We were scheduled to start a tour of Our Lady
of the Rockies at 9:30 and we wanted to stop for a quick breakfast before it
started.
See that
small white sculpture at the top of the hill?
I know you can’t see it very good in this picture since I was trying to
snap a picture going around a curve. But
it gives you an idea of what this sculpture looks like up on top of the
continental divide 8510 feet above sea level.
You can see it coming west on I-90 coming into Butte if you look up in
time.
I wanted to
see this sculpture up close. I was
enthralled by the story of the faith and dedication of the people of Butte who
completed this statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus. It wasn’t an accomplishment of a professional
sculptor, it was the work of the common man, all volunteers.
The work
began as a promise made by a local man when his wife was fighting cancer. He prayed to Mary and promised that he would
build a statue in tribute to her if only his wife could be saved. His prayers worked and he began discussing
with other locals about how he would complete his project – he was originally
envisioning a statue about 5 feet tall in his front yard.
At the time
a lot of people in Butte were unemployed, the mines had closed and other
businesses were suffering also. As
discussions on the project continued and involved more people, it grew. People began to dream big, volunteer and
donate, it gave people a purpose. The
project started on December 29, 1979
The land
where the Lady is located was donated for the project. The road up to the statue is still private
land so you can’t drive yourself up to the top, you have to go in special vans.
As machines
and operators were excavating for a road to the top, others were working on
designing and building the statue, a much larger task than any of them had even
thought of taking on before this. The
statue was built in five sections, the total weight of the statue is 51
tons. The height is 90 feet.
The base of
the statue was poured with 400 tons of concrete (donated) in September, 1985. There are four 10 feet deep holes for
anchors. The holes were dug by hand and
the rocks hauled out in buckets.
Since the
statue was too big to be delivered by truck to the site a Nevada Air National
Guard team lifted the sections into place using a Sikorsky Sky Crane. The sections all exceeded the normal limits
of the helicopter (sky crane). The high
altitude and the continuous winds of the area provided additional
challenges. All of the sections went
into place as planned except the section with the hands. It started to spin and tilted into the middle
of the sections that were already in place.
One of the hands struck the other sections and almost sent the
helicopter down. The pilot gained
control and they went back to base to sit the section down, catch their breath
and start over again. The second try was
successful, her hand was repaired and the project was completed on December 20,
1985.
Men and
women from all walks of life and almost every religion worked on the
statue. It is nondenominational and was
dedicated by the workers to women everywhere, especially mothers.
It’s hard to
get a front view picture of the statue because you can’t step back quite far
enough without going over the side of the mountain. I think the advertising pictures are taken
from a plane. It is awe inspiring
nonetheless. The squares you can see on
the sleeves of her robe are screens inserted so the wind can blow through. Without them the Lady would probably topple
over.
The back
view of the statue is much nicer because you can get further away and today the
sun was shining on the back side of the statue.
The door at the back leads to a section of the inside of the
statue. This van is the one that brought
us up the mountain. It was packed, a
little warm and the road was very rough in spots, but our driver was very
informative.
Inside the
statue people have made donations to have family members remembered with
plaques and all sorts of other memorabilia have been left, mainly rosary beads.
This is the
path to the chapel. The chapel is a new
addition and is a six-sided building meant to represent a star.
The view
from the chapel balcony is pretty impressive too.
On the
outside of the chapel walls, protected by an overhanging roof is the Women’s
Memorial Wall. It commemorates over
16,000 women who are deceased and a donation has been made in their name (I think
this number is correct, I’m doing this from memory).
Another site
we can see from the top of the mountain is the Berkley Pit in Butte. This is now a copper mine, it was a gold and
silver mine in the past. I think it has
been referred to as the richest hill in America. The water in the pit in the middle of the
mine (Berkley Pit) is hazardous. Birds
landing there die. This pit is a very
real concern for the people in town because of the fear of this water leaking
into the ground and eventually into the water in their homes. I overheard a couple of the locals who were
on the tour discussing this ongoing issue.
For lunch we
took the recommendation of our granddaughter, Cheyanne, and tried the Pizza
Ranch. Cheyanne, you were spot on – it
was delicious. I don’t know if all Pizza
Ranch locations have the quality and quantity of food this one does, but our
first experience with Pizza Ranch was a good one. We got two senior buffets and soft drinks for
$17.
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