Leaving the Driftless Area and headed to Lake Tahoe, I wanted to take a route through The Black Hills in South Dakota, which left me to fill in the rest. This was the first thing I noticed on Google Maps just manually scrolling around — it was about 5 hours away, and there were some cheap places to stay in the area, so seemed like a decent first stop. I got to the neighboring “town” Algona after dark and hit the grotto the next morning.
The snowfall was once again perfect — not enough to cause any issues with travel, but just enough to give things a magical glow. Walking up to this place I immediately knew I was in for a treat.
The pictures from far away don’t do it justice. Every square inch was covered in crystals, gems, shells, fossils, mosaics, all artfully and painstakingly arranged to perfection.
This video gives a decent idea — plus it’s just the bathrooms or gift shop or something, not even the main attraction.
So, apparently, a grotto is just a cave with a wide radial opening. Historically they were naturally occurring more often than not, and typically a spiritual place. For some reason I thought water was involved? The literature here said now it’s really common to manufacture grottos, which doesn’t normally seem as cool to me, but this takes a pass.
Different grottos depicted different stages of Jesus throughout his life, I believe there were 12 in all, but some were small and non-enterable. They each had a little story with them which narrated the meaning behind the grotto: birth of Jesus, child Jesus, reborn Jesus, etc. A commonly noted feature were the “veiny hands” carved into the marble statues, which I found a little odd. The middle of the complex itself was a kind of grotto — a giant pillar capped in amethyst, melting into the ceiling, separated a covered walkway from the Grotto of the Reborn.
I walked around in awe and ended up spending way more time than I anticipated. It makes me think about Bev when I had told her the homestead story was really impressive and she just laughed, brushing it off:
”It’s only impressive because I succeeded. Otherwise you’d say it was really stupid”
That really stuck with me, and I can imagine this guy hauling all these crystals out to the middle of nowhere in the 1930s, probably looking really crazy. I may not necessarily agree with his motivation on a religious level. But the spirit and dedication this took, followed by the momentum which it provided, is definitely inspiring. By the end of his life, he had people from all over the world sending donations, churches donating, he just got to focus on the work.
In the back was the Christmas Chapel (they didn’t explain the Christmas part), which was also very impressive. Notably this final shrine inside, which contains one of the worlds largest single pieces of amethyst (a donation).
Feeling refreshed and on the right track, I set off into the next vast expanse of farmland known as Iowa. A ton more pictures and some videos below. Including a narration of the Christmas Shrine by one of the OG assistants to the designer. It’s pretty old timey and funny to listen to, but the attention to detail here is always deep.
— Oh and the church had this hilarious piece of paper posted on the community bulletin board. Next to like high school sports teams and church events. (A) the books themselves (B) the shakily inscribed “amazon.com” (C) they are the Kindle editions.
Leave a Reply