Chapel of St. James

The Chapel of St. Jakob Gonten is located southwest below the Kronberg peak at an elevation of 1,445 meters in the Appenzell Alps in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden. In 1464, mention was made of the chapel, hermit's cottage, and healing St. James's Spring. In 1456, mass was still read from a portable altar. The chapel was rebuilt in 1859.

St. James Chapel
It is not certain that hermits existed at the chapel and the healing spring on the northern slope of the Kronberg in the High Middle Ages. The church building was first mentioned with certainty in 1464, when it was permitted to read masses on a portable altar. In 1492, the episcopal permission from Constance was extended to include holding masses outdoors, which suggests pilgrimages and thus also something like tourism. Celebrations were held primarily on the anniversaries of the chapel's patrons, the holy apostles James the Elder (25 July) and Bartholomew (24 August), who were only documented in 1620. As a result of moisture damage, a new James Chapel was built in 1925 at a different location on the eastern ridge of the Kronberg.
It was not only the cold healing spring and St. James that people made pilgrimages to, but secular events were also documented early on at these lofty heights. In 1666, there is evidence of a "Stobete" on St. James' Day in Scheidegg, which must have been so fun that girls and young women in Appenzell were prosecuted before the council, partly because they had stayed away from the children's apprenticeship.
Text / Source: Luftseilbahn Jakobsbad-Kronberg AG, St. Josefstrasse 2 · 9108 Jakobsbad
kronberg.ch/de/unternehmen/geschichte.html

Already in the 15th St. James was worshiped here in the 19th century.

The beginnings of the worship of James at the place are related to a legend: According to this, the apostle is said to have hurled his walking sticks away from Santiago de Compostela with force, and they fell down on Kronberg. This explains the origin of the two pilgrim sticks in the colors red and yellow (Spanish national colors!).