April 2007: David Adickes, creator of the giant Sam Houston statue in Texas, told us that he met the man who made Our Lady of the Rockies. "He was a welder. In Butte, there were no sculptors." The statue was created, according to Adickes, to boost the town's spirits when its copper mines were shut down.

Adickes was told that the welder made the Lady's head and hands first, for statue 120 feet tall. "But then the FAA told them that anything taller than 90 feet would need a blinking light on its head." So the statue was built 90 feet tall, and its head and hands are consequently way too big.

"It's only made of 16-gauge steel," Adickes marvels. "You can rap on it. It makes a wonderful sound." [RoadsideAmerica.com Team, 04/06/2007]

Our Lady of the Rockies is a statue dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, built on top of the continental divide at Butte, MT, which is 20 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty. Besides being visible from interstates 15 and 90, the statue's internal structure is an upside down mine shaft. The statue was built by miners, and shafts were all they knew to build, so internally the statue is an upside down shaft. You can reach the statue by bus during the summer months. [Thomas Brady, 06/24/1997]