Salvation Mountain

Jill's Journal: What happens when one man wants to share God’s love with the world and he just so happens to be a full-time resident of the very bizarre Slab City outside of Niland, California? Why, Salvation Mountain. Of course.

Sometime in the 1980s, Leonard Knight began patching together homemade adobe, straw, abandoned rubbish, and eventually an estimated 100,000 gallons of paint. His monument started small but grew and grew…and grew. Now three stories high and as wide as a football field, his unusual method of testimony has become a cultural icon. The bottom of the "mountain" symbolizes the Sea of Galilee, at the top is a cross, and everywhere in between is a picture or a message. There’s even a “yellow brick road” to lead one to the summit.

Salvation Mountain welcomes visitors to Slab City and is a destination in itself. It is said Leonard – as everyone in Slab City knows him – worked on Salvation Mountain every single day and personally welcomed every visitor (donations only accepted in the form of paint) until this past December, when the 80-year-old’s health failed and he was moved from his truck camper to a long-term care facility. The future of Salvation Mountain, which needs constant upkeep in the desert elements, is unknown.

I can’t imagine there’s too many other places like this in the world…it's definitely different. You’ve got to admire what one man on a mission can do.