Salvation Mountain
Salvation Mountain is a visionary environment covering a desert hillside in Imperial County, California.
Salvation Mountain was created by local resident Leonard Knight (1931–2014). The mountain is made from adobe, straw, and thousands upon thousands of gallons of colorful lead-free paint. It encompasses numerous murals and areas painted with Christian sayings and Biblical verses.
Leonard forever trying to promote what was burning so deeply inside of him, he was armed with half of a bag of cement, and decided to leave his mark before he left the area. Leonard fashioned a small sculpture and proclaimed "I was just going to stay and build for one week. It's been a very long week" -- L.Knight 1996
As his monument grew taller and taller, he would pack old junk he found at the dump onto the side of his "mountain," fill it with sand and cover it with cement and paint. As cement was hard to come by, he would sometimes mix too much sand with it. Leonard's mountain grew and grew reaching the sky - 30, 40, 50 feet and more.
One day after about four years of work, with the instability of all of that sand undermining it's internal structure, the mountain fell down into a heap of rubble, sand, and weak cement. Instead of being discouraged, Leonard thanked the Lord for showing him that the mountain wasn't safe. He vowed to start once again and to "do it with more smarts."
And so rose from the rubble ...Salvation Mountain.
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