OUR LADY OF THE ROCKIES

Day 222: December 20

Our Lady of the Rockies, Butte, Montana, USA


Our Lady of the Rockies is a monumental statue completed in 1985 and 90 feet (27 m) tall, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which sits atop the Continental Divide and overlooks the town of Butte, Montana.

It is the third tallest statue in the United States, after the Statue of Liberty and the recent statue of Pegasus defeating the Dragon, placed in Gulfstream Park, on Hallandale Beach in Florida.

The statue was built by volunteers using donated materials, in order to honor women around the world, especially mothers. The base is 8,510 feet above sea level and 3,500 feet above the city. The statue is illuminated and visible at night.

Bob O'Bill, a resident of the area, had already developed the idea of making this statue of the Virgin in his mind, but he did not yet know how and where.

In 1979, his wife Joyce became seriously ill with cancer. At that point he decided to make a vow to Our Lady; if his wife were healed he would put his hand to his project, in order to pay her due honors in his backyard. Obviously the dimensions would have been much smaller, we are talking about 5 feet in spite of the current 90.

The woman recovered and so the man set to work, but little by little his idea was changing and what was supposed to be a small statue in the garden became the large and majestic "Our Lady of the Rocky Mountains"

Extraordinarily, many citizens of Butte began to donate the necessary materials and part of their time so that this project became a reality. And the creator of the final project was Laurien Eugene Riehl, a retired engineer from the Anaconda Company who made his engineering skills available to everyone for a perfect realization of the majestic statue.

In fact, it had to withstand the powerful gusts of wind that hit the peaks of these mountains. Joe Roberts transported the material. It can be said that almost everyone worked hard to participate in this great project. Work began on 29 December 1979.

The base of the statue was poured in September 1985 with 400 tons of concrete. The concrete was supplied by a local company and it was an army vehicle that lifted the statue to be placed. A unique emotion for all those who had worked so the realization of this project! The construction finished on December 20, 1985.

Now Our Lady of the Rocky Mountains has become a tourist attraction and buses alternate from June to September non-stop.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

" I see that all the saints have advanced toward God in your heart and have been carried to God in your motherly arms during their lives."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 77)

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