Who built the Mysterious Staircase at Loretto Chapel?

Visit Santa Fe, New Mexico and you will hear of the mysterious staircase at Loretto Chapel. The story you will hear and can even find on the Web is that when the chapel was built in the 1800's, someone suddenly realized there was not room to build a staircase from the ground floor to the choir loft.
At that point a mysterious stranger appeared and with great skill built the staircase that spirals from the ground to open onto the choir loft today, and he did it without nails. Then he disappeared without anyone learning who he was.
Who was this mysterious stranger? The first time I visited the chapel, I heard several ideas, but the conclusion most often suggested was it had to be St. Joseph, Mary's husband. He was a carpenter.
The staircase is a marvel of engineering and craftsmanship. That cannot be denied as this photo taken by Ian Harris of Copenhagen, Denmark, on a visit to Santa Fe this past summer shows.
But, I have a flash for you as to the identity of the craftsman who built that staircase.
I found out from a small item in “New Mexico” magazine. The writer said she'd searched high and low for the craftsman's name, and then finally found it among some newspaper obituaries.
The obituary identified him as a certain Frenchy Rojas. It said he'd created the spiral staircase at Loretto Chapel and then some other fine piece of wood work in at another building, perhaps in Albuquerque.
The obituary said after crafting those pieces in northern New Mexico he ended up in Dog Canyon, which is south of Albuquerque. There, the obituary said, he was murdered, and, that fact, that he'd been murdered was featured first in the obituay. There were other details that I have forgotten. One vague recollection is he belonged to some French society along the lines of the Masons, as best I can recall it.
So, if you visit Santa Fe and Loretto Chapel, admire the craftsmanship, but also know you are probably one of the few people among the admirers around you who knows who built it. Thanks for the great photo, Ian.

El Dorado!

A story of the man who sang the title song for the movie!

I truly enjoy music, music of all styles, and one particular song I enjoy hearing over and over again is the title song, "El Dorado," from the movie of the same name, sung by George Alexander. It is a wonderful movie with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. I like the movie, but I especially love the song because of George Alexander's incredible voice. You can find the music on the web or at a link I have provided. Just click the title above, and it will take you right to the song.
But, to get to the main part of this story, I just happened to find one of George Alexander's nieces, and this is one of her wonderful memories of her uncle:
"I will always remember, whenever we went out to lunch for many years in San Francisco, where we are from, right before the bill would come, it was a family custom, for one of us, the nieces, usually, to ask Uncle George to 'hum' a few bars from El Dorado, which he would do. Then out of the blue, he would belt out the tune, and sing the whole song. People would come in off the street, everyone would stop what they were doing and gather around the table. My uncle had such a wonderfully loud baritone voice that a microphone was not really necessary. I recall bringing a boyfriend with me years ago, and he told me he felt like crawling under the table. Suffice it to say, he did not have an Uncle George in his midst!"
She also told me that her Uncle George, now in his 80s, is in a nursing home. I wish her and her uncle well.