Rudolph Grotto and Wonder Caves

A priest who had never built a wall spent decades piling stone into a shrine garden in central Wisconsin, and volunteers still keep it open. The Rudolph Grotto Gardens sit behind St. Philip Catholic Church in the village of Rudolph.

According to the grotto's own history, Father Philip Wagner visited Our Lady's Shrine at Lourdes while studying for the priesthood in Europe in 1912, and promised Mary that if his health was restored he would build her a shrine. He was ordained in 1915 and assigned to Rudolph in 1917. Work began in 1919 with trees, flower beds and rock collecting. The first shrine, the Lourdes Shrine, was begun in 1927 and completed in 1928. The history says he had never built a wall and did not know how to mix mortar. Edmund Rybicki began helping him in 1928, at the age of 12, and continued the work. Thousands of tons of rock were hauled from local farms, and shells, marbles, tiles and coloured glass give the shrines their finish. Wagner died in 1959, and the last project was completed in spring 1983.