Southern California’s Imperial County Board of Supervisors named “Salvation Mountain” a Historically Significant Property and Historic Resource today, January 9, in a unanimous five to zero vote. The designation protects late artist Leonard Knight’s monumental art project in the desert, which sits on a former military base on state-owned land, from development that could cause “adverse change.” The 50-foot-tall artwork is located an hour and a half from Palm Springs and three hours from Los Angeles near the Salton Sea, in one of California’s poorest counties.
Knight was born in Burlington, Vermont, and served in the Korean War before he moved to California and began constructing “Salvation Mountain” in 1986. The original structure, made primarily with concrete and sand, suffered a collapse around 1990, but Knight continued to build, adapting his materials to include adobe clay, straw, and trash including old cars and telephone poles. The finished work includes additional structures including a small “museum” and a domed hut. Knight, who lived out of his pickup truck nearby, stopped work on Salvation Mountain in 2011 due to failing health. He died three years later in 2014.
Dozens of Bible verses, prayers, and phrases such as “God is love” adorn Knight’s colorful creation, scattered amongst rainbow-colored stripes and vibrant floral motifs. The work required over 100,000 gallons of paint.
In recent years, the camera-friendly landmark has attracted a new wave of visitors due to its popularity on social media. Still, the desert heat has cracked parts of the work and the roof of its small museum has collapsed.
Nearby, a community of residents, frequently living off the grid out of their cars, make up an encampment called Slab City. In 1994, “Salvation Mountain” narrowly avoided destruction when Imperial County, in an attempt to begin charging Slab City residents for their sites and remove Knight’s project, ordered that the artwork be tested for toxic waste. A petition to save the work garnered hundreds of signatures and a soil sample came back negative; “Salvation Mountain” was saved.
Now the site is run by Salvation Mountain, Inc., a publicly registered nonprofit that oversees the work’s conservation. While today’s victory signifies an important step in conserving the work, Salvation Mountain, Inc. hopes to eventually take ownership of the land where the artwork sits.
High-profile figures have lent visibility to Salvation Mountain over the decades, including John Waters, who narrated a 2004 documentary about the Salton Sea that spotlights the site, and the band Coldplay, which filmed a 2016 music video there. The artwork and Knight himself made appearances in Sean Penn’s 2007 film Into the Wild.
“You really believe in love, then?” the main character in Into the Wild asks the real-life Knight in the blockbuster film.
“Yeah — totally. And this is a love story that is staggering to everybody in the whole world. That God really loves us, a lot,” the artist replies. “I really love it here. I think the freedom of this place is just so beautiful. I wouldn’t move for $10 million.”
Wonderful news. So many places like in this in the desert get vandalized over the years. It is indeed a miracle that only time and nature has taken a toll. I hope that money for repairs and maintenance comes from somewhere. The Salton Sea is quickly becoming a center for mining lithium for EV batteries. Hopefully some of those profits go back to the community, to protect the environment and historic places such as this.