Milwaukie Travel Guide

Holy Hill, the Basilica and National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, stands on a glacial kame in Hubertus, Washington County, Wisconsin. Built in Romanesque Revival style, the three-level basilica sits at roughly 1,350 feet in the Kettle Moraine, one of the highest points in southeastern Wisconsin, with clear-day views reaching the Milwaukee skyline and Lake Michigan. The present church was laid in 1926 and consecrated in 1931, and was raised to the rank of minor basilica by papal decree on 19 November 2006, the same year it joined the National Register of Historic Places. The 435-acre oak-covered site has been run without interruption by Discalced Carmelite friars from Bavaria since 1906 and draws 300,000 to 500,000 pilgrims and visitors a year. Parking at the foot of the hill and the scenic tower are both free. The pilgrimage tradition reaches back to 24 May 1863, the feast of Mary Help of Christians instituted by Pope Pius VII, when a priest dedicated the first log chapel of the dedication in North America. The summit was already a place of prayer before any church: around 1862 a hermit named Francois Soubrio settled here after recognising the hill from a 1676 French diary and map describing a stone altar and a cross. The Shrine Chapel on the first level still displays rows of crutches, braces and canes left by pilgrims as testimony to healing. Fourteen life-size Stations of the Cross carved by the sculptor Joseph Aszklar between 1914 and 1928 line the eastern slope in fieldstone grottos, and pilgrims still walk them barefoot at times. The Old Monastery Inn below offers retreat accommodation, with a cafe and gift shop on site.