Salvation Mountain

Niland, California, United States

Landmarks and monuments

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Salvation Mountain is a folk-art hill of adobe, straw and donated paint built by Leonard Knight beside the entrance to Slab City near Niland, California. Its Salvation Mountain Inc. nonprofit lists it as free to visit from sunrise to sunset.

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Salvation Mountain

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Site-level location · 33.2519° N, 115.4711° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A hill of adobe, straw and donated paint beside the entrance to Slab City carries a central message in large letters: 'God Is Love'. Salvation Mountain stands near Niland in Imperial County, and was made by Leonard Knight, a Korean War veteran born in Burlington, Vermont.

According to Salvation Mountain Inc., Knight arrived at Bombay Beach in 1986 and gave up his hot-air balloon dream before building a small monument on a forgotten riverbank ledge at the entrance to Slab City. That first version, made largely of cement and sand, collapsed after about three years. Hyperallergic dates the collapse to around 1990. In late 1989, the nonprofit says, he started again using only adobe clay and straw, and the result is the present mountain, which it describes as about three storeys high.

Sizes and quantities differ by source. Legends of America gives about 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide, and Hyperallergic says 50 feet tall. The nonprofit says the site holds more than 100,000 gallons of paint; a KPCC quote on its homepage describes it as covered in half a million gallons of latex paint.

In 1994, the nonprofit says, after a county soil test labelled the site a 'toxic nightmare' over lead and the county sought its removal, independent tests found no high contaminant levels and the mountain was saved. Knight moved into a care facility in 2011, and KPBS reported that he died on 10 February 2014, aged 82. In January 2024 the Imperial County Board of Supervisors voted 5 to 0 to name it a Historically Significant Property and Historic Resource.

The nonprofit says the land is owned by the State of California and is raising money to buy it. It lists the site as free to enter from dawn to dusk every day, with donations welcome.

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PRACTICAL

Plan your stop

WHAT TO EXPECT

An outdoor desert site. Salvation Mountain Inc. lists entry as free, open dawn to dusk 365 days a year, with donations welcome and guided tours by advance arrangement. Its rules include a 5 mph speed limit, pets on leads and no camping on the mountain.

ACCESS

Off Beal Road at the edge of Slab City, near Niland; Salvation Mountain Inc. lists the address as 603 Beal Rd, Niland. Parking is allowed around the mountain in marked areas.

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