The Santa Fe Staircase: Loretto Chapel’s Famous Architectural Wonder

Loretto Mother Magdalen Hayden (some spell her first name Magdalene) was one of two sibling sisters who established Loretto missions that served persons of color. In 1847, Mother Bridget Hayden had gone to Osage Mission, Kan., and in 1852, Mother Magdalen went to Santa Fe, N.M. In her book “Loretto: An Early American Congregation in the Antebellum South,” Loretto historian Sister Joan Campbell called the siblings both strong leaders who “developed model Loretto schools where girls of Native American, Hispanic and European descent were educated.”*  

Saving Mother Bridget’s achievements for another day, her younger sibling may best be remembered today as the woman under whose watch the famous architectural wonder — a spiral staircase making two complete revolutions with no middle support — was built at Our Lady of Light Chapel, also known as Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe. 

With a tip of the hat to our Loretto Heritage Center staff, this week’s Loretto Facebook page will showcase how this famous story has been shared in various media as told in a LOREtto blog post by Reba Weatherford, “Representations of the Loretto Staircase Mystery.”

*From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, our Loretto ministry was juxtaposed with a coordinated effort that diminished Native cultures and made their land more available for settlers, while leaving behind a trail of intergenerational trauma. We are now invited to hold lightly our heroic narratives of the Native Boarding Schools era and become curious about a more complete understanding of our history. Loretto is still gathering files and making contacts to coordinate this effort through the Loretto Roots Project.