Salvation Mountain
Leonard Knight was born in Vermont and spent a lot of his youth and adulthood working odd jobs to make ends meet. During a visit to his sister in San Diego, he became deeply religious but found himself and his newfound ideology unwelcome in Vermont. While in Vermont, he saw a hot air balloon fly overhead, and he spent the next 14 years attempting to create one of his own. Unfortunately, it never was able to get off of the ground, but the quilted, colorful fabric of the balloon can still be seen at Salvation Mountain today.
The first Salvation Mountain was in Arizona, but due to poor building skills the mountain collapsed after four years. Rather than giving up, Leonard moved to California and built a second mountain, this time learning from the lessons that God taught him when the first mountain crumbled.
The current Salvation Mountain is made from native adobe clay and is covered with layers and layers of vivid colors of paint. There are religious writings and symbols adoring the huge slab of rock and clay that Leonard build.
Salvation Mountain itself is not a commune but was at the entrance to a community of snowbirds – people who come south in the winter – and squatters called Slab City. Leonard spread the message of God is Love, and he passed away in 2014. Leonard wanted to build a monument to the utopian ideal that love is the most powerful force in the world.
