Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, down in Cameron County. Now, some things are built to last, and some things outlast everything built around them. This is a story about one of those things.

Somewhere around 1869 or 1870, on the grounds of the Convent of the Congregation of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, a cloistered order, workers began laying brick and stone. What they were building was a grotto. Not a grand cathedral, not a courthouse, not a monument to generals or governors.

A grotto. Quiet, devotional, tucked inside convent walls. The work was done under the supervision of Sister Theresa Solis, and whoever she was, she had an eye for materials worth keepin'.

Because this grotto was not built from ordinary fill. Inside those walls, they placed petrified wood hauled in from Roma, a hundred and twenty miles to the northwest. They gathered stones from European grottos.

And they brought stones from the Grave of St. Theresa herself. Now you take a moment with that.

Stones from Europe. Stones from a saint's grave. Petrified wood from deep in the Texas brush country.

All mortared together in one small sacred space in South Texas. For decades, the grotto stood on those convent grounds, within those cloistered walls, not open to just anyone. Then, in 1926, the doors opened to the public.

Whatever had been kept quietly inside those grounds was now something anyone could come and see. But here is where the story turns. In 1969, the convent was demolished.

Gone. A place that had stood for the better part of a century, erased. And you might think that was the end of the grotto too.

Most things don't survive what surrounds them bein' torn down. This one did. The grotto was relocated.

Picked up, moved, set down somewhere new. The petrified wood from Roma still inside it. The stones from European grottos still inside it.

The stones from the Grave of St. Theresa, still there. Built around 1869 or 1870.

Outlasting the convent that sheltered it. Outlasting demolition itself. Some things, it turns out, are just built to last.

What the marker says

This brick and stone grotto was constructed about 1869-70 on the grounds of the Convent of the Congregation of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, a cloistered order. Built under the supervision of Sister Theresa Solis and opened to the public in 1926, it contains petrified wood from Roma (120 miles northwest) and stones from European grottos and the Grave of St. Theresa. The convent was demolished in 1969 and the grotto was relocated here. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981