“Salvation Mountain is a visionary environment covering a hill in the Colorado Desert, north of Calipatria, northeast of Niland near Slab City, several miles from the Salton Sea. It is in Imperial County, California.
The artwork is made from adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of lead-free paint. Salvation Mountain was created by local resident Leonard Knight (1931–2014).[1] It encompasses numerous murals and areas painted with Christian sayings and Bible verses, though its philosophy was built around the Sinner’s Prayer.[2]
The Folk Art Society of America declared it “a folk art site worthy of preservation and protection”[3] in the year 2000. In an address to the United States Congress on May 15, 2002, California Senator Barbara Boxer described it as “a unique and visionary sculpture… a national treasure… profoundly strange and beautifully accessible, and worthy of the international acclaim it receives”.[4]
In December 2011, the 80-year-old Knight was placed in a long-term care facility in El Cajon for dementia.[5] Leonard Knight died on February 10, 2014, in El Cajon.[6]” – Wikipedia
I spent a night camped out in Slab City.
Slab City is in the Sonoran Desert located in Imperial County, CA 156 miles northeast of San Diego. It took its name from concrete slabs that remained from the abandoned World War II Marine Corps barracks of Camp Dunlap.
The temperatures during summer are unforgiving [as high as 120 °F (48 °C)]; nonetheless, there is a group of around 150 permanent residents who live in “The Slabs” year round.
The site is both decommissioned and uncontrolled, and there is no charge for parking. The site has no official electricity, running water, sewers, toilets or trash pickup service. Many residents use generators or solar panels to generate electricity.
