Stories, legends, myths - The Santa Fe Spiral Staircase

This story is part of a series of articles on various stories, myths, superstitions, legendswhich are in one way or another related to wood. Maybe you've heard of them, maybe not. By some mysterious mechanism, such stories always attract us and make us come back to them, reciting them with the same pleasure. The spiral staircase of the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the USA, is one such famous story. Its fame stems primarily from the fact that it is built without a central pillar to support it, as if it were floating in mid-air. It is said to have been built in a very short time by one person using simple tools. It is made entirely of wood, and the wood is not local. No nails or adhesives were used for joints. All this is an invitation to discover the story of the mysterious staircase.

Chapel of the Loretto nuns

In 1848, the city of Santa Fe, which belonged to Mexico, came into the possession of the United States after a war. The population was very diverse, with all kinds of faiths, so Bishop Jean Baptist Lamy was charged with spreading Catholicism in the area. He contacts various orders, but the only ones who respond are the nuns of the Sisters of Loretto. They come and start spreading the Catholic faith, even founding a school.

With money raised from various donations, the nuns plan to build a chapel. The bishop gave the task to the French architect Antoine Mouly, who had worked on the restoration of the Sainte Chapelle inside the Palais de Justice in the center of Paris. He decided to take this chapel as a model for the new building and began work in 1873. The Baroque-style chapel is completed in 1878, but in the meantime Mouly dies, leaving the access to the choir box unfinished. And so the legend begins.

The stranger who built the ladder with a saw and a tee

The nuns tried to solve the problem, but all the carpenters who had been called in said that it was impossible to make a ladder in such a tight space. Then they decided to pray to St. Joseph, the father of Jesus, who had been a carpenter and was the spiritual patron saint of carpenters. They prayed for nine days, and on the tenth day a stranger appeared. He told them that he would make the ladder, provided he was left to work alone. The stranger had with him a saw, a tee, and that was all.

In just six months the stranger managed to build a fantastic wooden staircase. It was helical, with no center pillar, no nails and no adhesives. He only used wooden dowels for the joints. The staircase is 20 feet high and two full 360-degree turns. The wood he used is not local and to complete the mystery, the stranger disappeared immediately after finishing the job without waiting for payment. All this has fueled the legend that the staircase was built by St. Joseph himself. The fact that the staircase has exactly 33 steps - the Christic age - further reinforced the legend.

A scale that continues to be studied by experts

The staircase was built somewhere between 1877 and 1881, the exact date is unknown. Originally it had no balustrade and did not lean against any wall or pillar. In the meantime a balustrade and supporting pillar were added. Many timber construction specialists and physicists have studied the staircase and have also found explanations for the perfect balance of the 33 identical steps, but they all admit that it is still very difficult to make such a staircase now with all modern machinery, even more so then, with rudimentary tools.

In our times the phenomenon has been studied by various historians and specialists. At one point, in the 1970s, it was thought to have been the work of a German builder, but the theory was not backed up by evidence. More recently, Mary Jean Straw Cook, a local-born historian, was able to find documents proving that the staircase was made by French craftsman Francois-Jean Rochas, who later settled in America. From the evidence found it would appear that the staircase was built in France and only installed in the chapel. This would explain why the wood used was not found locally. But there are many other questions which have not yet been answered and which continue to sustain the legend.

The story of the Santa Fe staircase has fired the imagination of many generations. It became so well known that it was the subject of a successful movie.

The Loretto Chapel is now a museum and no longer in use. But it's still used for marriage ceremonies.

Trojan Horse, Christmas tree, Christmas log burning or "Wood for wood"are other stories in the "Stories, legends, myths" series.