Blue Cloud Abbey was an American Benedictine monastery located near the town of Marvin, in Grant County, South Dakota. It was a member of the Swiss-American Congregation. The patron saint of the monastery was the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Snows, from which the abbey derived its name. History During the first half of the 20th century, the monks of St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana had operated four small mission churches in the Dakotas, two in North Dakota and two in South Dakota. Their purpose was to serve the local population of the region, primarily the Native Americans on the Indian reservations, for whom they also operated several schools. In 1949 the monastic chapter decided to establish a new monastery to establish their presence more stably in that region and thereby to permit the full expression of their monastic lives. To this end, Archabbot Ignatius Esser, O.S.B., assigned four monks to scout the area. While driving to look at one site, they stopped outside the tiny town of Marvin and saw a rolling, wooded string of hills above Whetstone Valley. The land was rocky but they liked it so they went to nearby Milbank to inquire about its availability. They were directed to the local bank, where the president of the bank, Effner Benedict, told them that the land had just been listed for sale 30 minutes earlier. He offered them at $22 an acre. These Benedictines felt that the good timing, combined with the banker's name, were signs which they could not ignore, so they immediately agreed to purchase the land. Construction began that same year, with the monastic buildings being designed by the Chicago architect Edo Belli. The monastery was formally established on June 24, 1950, as a dependency of St. Meinrad Archabbey. It was raised to the rank of a semi-independent priory on 5 August 1952 and to a fully autonomous abbey on 21 March 1954, with Gilbert Hess, O.S.B., being elected as the community's first abbot. At its peak, there were forty monks in the community. It was during the administration of the second abbot, Alan Berndt, O.S.B. (1920–2016), that the abbey reached its highest membership, and carried on a variety of services. He was instrumental in the transferring the ownership and administration of the abbey's mission schools to the Native people they served. Daughter house In 1964, in response