The stone wall reproduction of the Lourdes Grotto in France was initiated by President Fr. John A. Watterson and constructed by Mount St. Mary's seminarians in 1875. The purpose of the project was to commemorate the apparitions which had taken place 17 years earlier in France and which had been approved in 1862. (Photo taken by William Henry Tipton, circa 1890s)
On December 1, 2007, Bishop Perrier visited the Grotto of Lourdes in Emmitsburg and celebrated Mass in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Hill. He also presented the Grotto with a precious stone from Lourdes, France, taken near the miraculous spring where Our Lady told St. Bernadette to dig.