To its curative powers many crutches and ex voto objects, hung round the well, as in the Lourdes Grot, bear ample witness.
Among its institutions are the Ferguson Library (1882; with 16,000 volumes in 1909), several private schools, a Y.M.C.A., the Stamford Hospital (private, 1893), two private sanatoria, the Convent of our Lady of Lourdes, St John's Church House, a day nursery (1902), with dispensary and kindergarten, and the Stamford Children's Home (1895).
The present fame of Lourdes is entirely associated with this grotto, where the Virgin Mary is believed in the Roman Catholic world to have revealed herself repeatedly to a peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
Several religious communities have been named after Our Lady of Lourdes.
Of these one, consisting of sisters of the third order of St Francis, called the Congregation of Our Lady of Lourdes (founded 1877), has its headquarters in Rochester, Minnesota.
