In 1853, Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and the Kentuckian Sisters of Loretto established the Academy of Our Lady of Light in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In its initial years of operation the academy lacked a proper place of worship, which inspired the Sisters to encourage the construction of a chapel.

Lamy and the Sisters enlisted the help of French architect Projectus Mouly, who designed Loretto Chapel in the image of the Gothic cathedral Sainte-Chappelle in Paris. Allegedly, Lamy's nephew murdered Mouly out of jealousy before a staircase to the choir loft could be constructed.

According to legend, the Sisters of Loretto prayed to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, for nine days for someone with the skills necessary to build a stairway in such a small space. On the ninth day, an elderly man appeared and began work on the staircase. Six months later, the Sisters gazed upon a completed spiral staircase and found the carpenter had vanished.

The carpenter's identity, as well as the engineering of the staircase, still remain a mystery today. The carpenter constructed the miraculous staircase without center or side supports, using only a saw, hammer, carpenter's square, wooden pegs, and tubs of hot water to shape the wood. Even the species of wood remains a mystery.

In 1968, the academy closed, the chapel was deconsecrated, and the property put on the open market. Luckily, Jim and Charles Kirkpatrick saved the chapel from destruction and opened the site as a museum. Today, the miraculous staircase remains a legend and draws over 200,000 tourists to the chapel annually.