Christ of the Ozarks

A seven-story white statue of Christ looks out from Magnetic Mountain over the town of Eureka Springs. The Great Passion Play, which owns the grounds, gives its height as 67 feet with a 65-foot arm span, and says it is built of 24 layers of white mortar on a steel frame and weighs more than two million pounds. Its foundation took 340 tons of concrete, and workers built an elevator up the scaffolding to reach the upper sections. Virginia Commonwealth University’s World Religions and Spirituality Project (WRSP) says sculptor Emmet Sullivan made it and the Elna M. Smith Foundation completed and dedicated it on 25 June 1966. The Pea Ridge Times noted in 2025 that Sullivan had also assisted on Mount Rushmore and designed dinosaur sculptures for several roadside parks. It was the first of five “Sacred Projects” planned by minister Gerald L. K. Smith, who later added an art gallery, a Bible museum and the amphitheatre for the Great Passion Play. WRSP records Smith’s political activism, including several unsuccessful Senate and presidential bids and groups organised around opposition to communism, liberalism, organised labour and Jews, and what it calls his anti-Semitic and fascist sentiments, and says he and his wife are buried at the foot of the statue. Rankings differ. The Eureka Springs tourism site calls it the largest statue of Christ in North America and the second largest in the world, while WRSP says that, counting the mountain, it is the third-tallest Jesus in the world. WRSP adds that it faces west, reportedly to thank Eureka Springs for allowing Smith to build it. The Great Passion Play’s website, checked on 20 October 2026, lists the statue and cross as open 365 days a year from 8am to 8pm, until 11pm on Passion Play nights, and includes the statue among its free attractions.