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I just returned from Santa Fe and want to share this Miraculous Staircase built in the 1879 . The wood is unknown , the craftsman is unknown and why it is standing is unknown. The Legend of the Miracle Staircase started with the Sisters of Loretto built a church but the Architect forgot a staircase to the choir loft which was not uncommon for in those days most used a latter . The Sisters needed a staircase not a latter. After many carpenters and many prayers to there devoted St. Joseph A gray haired man came with a donkey and tool box . Eyewitnesses passed on to others said the only tools he had was a hammer, a saw and T-square. He worked by himself during the christmas season of 1879. Eyewitnesses also said they saw wood being soaked in tubs of water throughout the courtyard. The staircase does two complete 360 turns without a center support and no nails . When Mother Magdalen went to pay him he was gone. The local lumber company had no bill for lumber. Many experts have tried to identify the wood and surmise where it came from. It has been identified as a previously unknown type of spruce with the strength of hardwood but the flexibility of spruce. It cell makeup is a spruce grown at over 10,000 feet which would mean Alaska. Where the old carpenter got that wood is a mystery. The construction after looking at it is like a coiled spring and works like that. When the Sisters walk on it , the weight is transfered to the bottom. I looked closely at the wood and found out the wood was painted over with lime plaster and horsehair. Later the Sisters had it painted over to resemble varnished wood as it looks today. Everyone who visits it is amazed at its wonder and beauty, but no one can explain how it got there and how it stays there . It is truly an inexplicable stairway. All this and Heaven too.