Mining Cultures and Mary Cults: Where the Sacred and Profane Meet

Our Lady of the Rockies (OLR) is a ninety-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking Butte, Montana, from its perch high atop the Continental Divide. In the popularized account, OLR is a uniquely local undertaking reflecting the community’s character and pride. Yet OLR is far more than this, for it taps into a rich vein of cultural and spiritual tradition. As Mircea Eliade pointed out, the notion of the earth as female pervaded early Western civilizations. Mines were like the vagina of the earth, leading to the womb where metallic ores waxed like embryos. Accordingly, miners purified themselves through various rites to amend their violation. OLR began as a plan for a small, private altar. With the collapse of Butte’s copper mining economy, unemployed miners rallied around the idea of building a major shrine to the Virgin Mary that would help restore the city’s culture and economy.