Imagine if you will, 60’s pop artist Peter Max throwing up a mountain load of the Lord’s word in the middle of the Southern California desert, and you’ll have an idea of what Leonard Knight’s Salvation Mountain looks like. Over three stories tall, and spanning more than 100 feet (and expanding daily) this man-made Technicolor homage to the Old and New Testaments is an impressive sight regardless of your religious beliefs.
Leonard Knight, the “architect” responsible for the creation of Salvation Mountain, is a soft-spoken wiry framed man in his seventies, with more energy than most men half his age. A shock of brilliant
white hair covers his scalp. His skin has been weathered and tanned from years of “living under the stars” in this otherwise barren wilderness, and Leonard possesses a peaceful smile that suggests he honestly believes he has spoken to God, and vice versa.
In 1971, handyman Leonard saw a hot air balloon fly over his Vermont home. It didn’t say God is Love on it, but he wished it did. Years later in Nebraska, Leonard built his own balloon with that message emblazoned upon it. The balloon never actually ascended to the heavens, and eventually it rotted out, but Leonard remained undaunted in having his simple statement of love noticed.
“My God, it's amazing what happened to me,” Leonard told us on a recent visit up the mountain. “Back about 1967, in Lemon Grove, California, I start saying Jesus, I'm a sinner. Please come into my heart. And I said God, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm gonna say it maybe for 20 minutes or a half hour. And God, I started crying like a baby and Jesus, he really came into my heart.”