This Colorful “Jesus Loves You” Mountain Was Built By One Man From Mud, Paint, and Scraps

Salvation Mountain, California

Just past the Salton Sea is a mountain made entirely of paint and passion. Salvation Mountain is the life’s work of Leonard Knight, who turned adobe clay and countless paint cans into a 50-foot technicolor monument to his faith. The result is pure California: bizarre, sincere, and completely unforgettable.

A Painted Message in the Desert

Salvation Mountain is a 50-foot-high, 150-foot-wide splash of color in the Colorado Desert. Half a million gallons of paint cover it, creating a giant canvas with “God Is Love” as its main message.

Bible verses, hearts, flowers, and waterfalls cover every inch. Thousands make the trek out to see it each year, some estimating 100 visitors per day during peak seasons, despite its middle-of-nowhere location.

Leonard Knight Before the Mountain

Leonard Knight wasn’t born an artist or religious devotee. Vermont-born in 1931, he fixed cars and did odd jobs most of his life. In 1951, at age 20, Knight joined the military, serving during the Korean War as a vehicle mechanic.

Everything changed in 1967. While visiting his sister in San Diego, Knight had what you’d call a come-to-Jesus moment that completely redirected his life path.

The Hot Air Balloon That Never Flew

Knight’s original plan wasn’t a mountain at all. He initially spread “God Is Love” across the sky in a hot air balloon in the 1970s. He pieced together scraps of fabric, teaching himself to sew as he went.

The thing grew to 200 feet wide. But Knight used regular house paint instead of proper balloon fabric. Too heavy. His homemade furnace couldn’t get enough heat, and desert winds weren’t helping either. By 1984, he gave up the balloon idea but stuck around Niland near Slab City to build what he thought would be a small monument.

Slab City

Right next to Salvation Mountain sits Slab City. Locals call it “The Last Free Place in America.” Used to be a WWII Marine base till the military ditched it in 1946, leaving nothing but concrete slabs.

Nobody owns the land. No electricity, no running water, no sewage, no rules. People live in broken-down RVs and converted school buses. Snowbirds, artists, dropouts, they all end up here.

After seeing the mountain, plenty of visitors wander into Slab City to check out the makeshift art installations and “The Range,” an open-air stage made of pallets where residents perform on Saturday nights.

Built from Hay and Desert Mud

Knight didn’t exactly order supplies from Home Depot. He mixed desert clay with straw, piling it onto hay bales to create the mountain’s shape.

Each layer was sealed with paint to keep the rare desert rains from washing it away. As years passed, he stuck in whatever he could find – old tree trunks, car windows, junk.

The “Hogan” room uses old telephone poles as supports. Knight wasn’t trained in art or construction – he just figured it out as he went.

The Battle Against the Bulldozers

The mountain has soaked up roughly half a million gallons of paint over the years. Knight never said no to donations, just kept slapping on more layers.

Things got ugly in ’94 when Imperial County officials declared the place a toxic dump. Their tests showed lead contamination, and they voted to bulldoze the whole thing. Knight and his supporters weren’t having it.

They gathered thousands of signatures demanding new tests from someone who wasn’t on the county payroll. Those tests came back clean. The bulldozers stayed parked, and the mountain survived.

Inside the Mountain

Walk through the yellow door and you’re inside what Knight called his “Museum of Love.” It’s a rabbit warren of narrow passages held up by over 100 tree trunks from the desert.

Knight stuck old car windows in the ceiling as skylights. Every surface is painted – hearts, birds, flowers, Bible verses. The maze ends in a small meditation room with a “wishing well” tree where people leave trinkets and notes.

The Folk Art Society of America declared it a ‘folk art site worthy of preservation and protection’ in the year 2000.

The First Mountain Collapsed

Sometimes you gotta fail big before you succeed bigger. Knight built his first mountain back in ’84, spending five years on a steep pyramid made of cement and painted junk.

Then came the rains in 1989 which brought a rare desert downpour that cracked the whole structure. Five years of work gone in one storm. Most folks would’ve packed up and left. Not Knight.

He saw it as a sign to build something better. Version two used adobe clay mixed with straw instead of cement and had gentler slopes with a more robust design.

Knight Lived in a Truck for 30 Years

Knight lived in an old truck at the base of his creation for nearly 30 years until December 2011, when he moved to a nursing home. He lived without electricity and plumbing.

The desert heat pushed 120 degrees in summer sometimes. And he never charged admission. Knight survived on whatever visitors brought him (food, water, and paint).

He worked from dawn till the heat got too bad, then spent afternoons giving tours to whoever showed up. Didn’t matter if you were religious or not, Knight welcomed everyone the same.

Volunteers Keep the Mountain Alive

Knight kept the place going till he reached 80 years in 2011. But in 2014, his health gave out at a care facility in El Cajon.

A non-profit called Salvation Mountain, Inc. now handles the upkeep. Volunteers show up with brushes and shovels. Senator Barbara Boxer named it a “national treasure” in the Congressional Record back in 2002, but there’s no federal funding or protection.

How to Visit and What to Bring

The mountain sits about three miles northeast of Niland, California, just east of the Salton Sea. The site’s easy enough to find from Highway 111. Don’t even think about going in summer unless you enjoy heatstroke temperatures that go 110+.

October through April is your best bet. Entry’s free, but bringing a can of latex paint is good manners. While you’re out that way, check out the Salton Sea, Bombay Beach, and the surprisingly awesome International Banana Museum.

There aren’t many places to stay nearby but most visitors base themselves in Niland or Brawley.