Our Lady of the Rockies

https://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-story-behind-the-lady-of-the-rockies/79336

Our Lady of the Rockies, 4th-tallest statue in country, overlooks city of Butte, Montana.

The 90-foot steel statue atop this 3,500-foot mountain had humble beginnings: Back in 1979, Bob O’Bill promised to powers that be that he'd build a 5-foot structure if his wife beat cancer.
So when she recovered, he & his friends, mostly miners & craftsmen, threw out first plan & aimed higher.

Among them were John Roberts, a local businessman, & his employee Leroy Lee, a welder who struggled with fractions & never graduated high school but ended up designing & sculpting 8-story statue.

A helicopter hoists head of statue into place.

Cue the 1980s & start of mining & manufacturing decline that would riddle nation for next 30 years.
Bad timing meant thousands in Butte who worked so-called “Richest Hill on Earth” & its lucrative copper deposits were affected when smelter in nearby Anaconda closed. O’Bill’s project suffered a public backlash when The Montana Standard quoted him as saying statue would cost millions to build, without mentioning that funds would come mostly from volunteers.

People were struggling just to survive.
“Who'd pay for future upkeep?
It would become a monument of rust,” wrote one angry reader, while others suggested money would be better spent on schools, outdoor ice rinks or anti-poverty initiatives, as Lee recalls in his memoir, Our Lady Builds a Statue.

But even criticism proved a blessing in disguise: Laid-off workers provided workforce needed to clear a trail up mountain. “[The project] helped pull community together at a time when people didn’t have money, didn’t have jobs,” says Aubrey Jaap, digital specialist at Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives.

Financial support was scarce at first, so Roberts supplied heavy-duty machinery needed to tame the mountain.
Lee built statue’s right hand first, all 8 feet & hundreds of pounds of it, around Mother’s Day of 1982.
Its grandeur quickly stoked local imagination.
While “many thought it was crude,” Lee writes, “donations still poured in.”

Piece by piece, Lady of the Rockies was built.

Slowly, pieces fell into place.
The Anaconda Company, a behemoth trust that once owned mines from Butte to Mexico & Chile, sold builders a “load of pipe” for just a few hundred dollars & let them use $250,000 in road-clearing equipment for free.
At one point, builders thought they'd have to shutter project for lack of fuel.

But in what Lee called an “unexplainable” moment, workers discovered a fleet of Anaconda Company trucks full of diesel, oil & antifreeze.
The company, which was winding down operations, didn’t miss dozen 50-gallon barrels workers loaded up each night, amassing thousands of gallons of gas to fuel their dream — a stroke of good fortune some attributed to divine intervention.

Six years later, day finally came to transport statue up to its lofty new home.
The project had gone national: Ronald Reagan wrote a letter calling it “a splendid expression of faith & cooperation.”

Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, Montana Sen. John Melcher & Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger helped secure a Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter from Nevada Air National Guard to help with heavy lifts, provided builders covered fuel & living costs for pilots.

The pieces, 4 in total, were airlifted as city residents watched from below.
Disaster was narrowly avoided when chopper nearly dropped Lady’s midriff.
But after another try, statue was completed.

The Lady of the Rockies makes an imposing figure, all in white.

Today, 2o-hour round-trip bus tours escort visitors up mountain.
And while promotional literature admits it’s “built in the likeness of Mary, Mother of Jesus,” builders started calling statue nondenominational & “a symbol for women everywhere.”

Over years, religious undertones have led to squabbles & claims of miracles.
The latter started with stories about gassed-up trucks & prayers before the Lady began being attributed to other healings.
Even Catholic bishop of Helena asked builders to stop talking about mystical happenings, because “cults could be attracted & problems could arise,” Lee recounts.

But those looking for signs were missing point; message was already clear.
Putting statue atop mountain showed “that Butte still had determined people who didn't lie down & die,” Lee writes.
“They proved that by coming together, they can accomplish miracles.”