Leonard Knight

Leonard Knight is the builder and chief architect of Salvation Mountain. He was born on November 1, 1931, in Vermont. He lives at the mountain near Slab City, a few miles from Niland, California, and approximately convert|150|mi|km from San Diego.

Childhood

Knight grew up on a 32 acre farm about seven or eight miles (13 km) from Burlington, Vermont. As a youth, Knight was not very interested in school. He was the youngest of six children and spent much of his time working on the family farm. Of his childhood, he recalls, "I shoulda had a happier childhood than I did have. . . Everybody treated me good and everything, but it seemed like back then I just didn't want to learn and didn't want to do anything. It seemed like school was reading, writing, and arithmetic, and I didn't like any three of 'em. So I was kinda rebellious like. I just wouldn't go to school. I'd skip all the time. I'm not proud of that."

Early adulthood

Knight stayed in school through the tenth grade, then withdrew and was drafted into the US Army at the age of 20. After completing basic training in Breckenridge, Kentucky, he was sent to tank mechanics school in Fort Knox, which pleased him greatly. By the time he was sent to Korea, the war was at a close and he only spent ten days overseas. These ten days were not without danger, however; he recalls, "One time we had to go way up front to fix a tank. It was in enemy territory and the sergeant who was with me, he didn't know if it was an enemy tank or ours, and that made me nervous 'cause I was only over there for three days and, gee whiz, we were goofing around in enemy territory and even the guy in charge didn't know if it was an enemy tank or not. But it wasn't too bad. Up front everybody really seemed to protect everybody." After six weeks, at the age of 21, Knight was promoted to motor sergeant. Following the war, Knight went to work in an Oldsmobile dealership in Middlebury, Vermont where he remained until 1956.

Knight heads west

As a child of about 12 or 13, one of Knight's dreams was to move to California. Inspired by his interest in western movies, Knight saw California as a place of togetherness and community. He says, "I remember seeing movies where a family's barn would burn down and the neighbors would get together and build it back up. I figured the love of that was good, and I always figured I'd like to go to California where they did things like that."

He first traveled to California in 1956, when his brother in New York purchased an old truck and they drove across country for the whole summer. The two brothers ended up in San Diego when they "ran into the ocean and couldn't go any farther." Knight did not remain in California, however, as when his father died he returned to Vermont. It was there he discovered his interest in painting: "When my father died . . . I started painting cars a little bit. I didn't have a paint rack, I was just painting out in the weather. I liked to be my own boss an awful lot. I think I liked the challenge of seeing if I could do it on my own."

Becoming a Christian

In 1967, Knight went to visit his sister in San Diego. It was here where he experienced his first religious feelings after he rejected his sister's attempts to teach him about Jesus: "I was about thirty-six years old and I'd never spent one minute, hardly, thinking about God or the Lord. I remember (to my knowledge, it was on a Wednesday, about ten-thirty in the morning in 1967, in my van, by myself) and I just started saying 'Jesus, I'm a sinner, please come into my heart.' I figured, hey, I'm all alone with Jesus, there ain't no harm in me keeping repeating this. And, man, for twenty minutes I was just saying it over and over again, and it changed my life completely to the good."

In 1970, back in Burlington, he saw a hot air balloon fly over town which inspired him to work on a lifelong goal of creating a hot air balloon with the phrase "God is Love." For ten years, Knight tried and failed to convince church officials from Vermont to San Diego to fund its creation. Finally, while living in Gibbon, Nebraska, his friend volunteered to help him with the project.

Knight's Crusade

Knight and his friend visited what was according to Knight, "the largest manufacturer of hot air balloons in the country," Raven Balloon Industry in South Dakota. Although he had some money saved, he found it was not enough to purchase a balloon, which he describes as like "trying to purchase a brand new Cadillac with seven hundred dollars." However, he was able to purchase odd ends of material which had been cut incorrectly, and thus began his personal journey to sew a giant balloon dedicated to his love for Jesus. Although he previously did not even know how to operate a sewing machine, Knight spent the next few years in Nebraska attempting to piece together his patchwork balloon.

One fall, the first snow came quickly, before Knight had a chance to pack up the balloon (which he sewed year round and daily attempted to get off the ground), and so the balloon had to be left out all winter. When Knight traveled to Slab City and restarted his attempts to launch the balloon, he found it had rotted. Of this failure, Knight says, "That was the start of my mountain . . ."

alvation Mountain

is Knight's accomplishment which began with the failure of another dream. Upon his discovery of the rotted balloon, Knight intended to put up a monument with half a bag of cement. He says, "I walked way down the ridge and I thought - that's too far from the road. And I remember carrying the bag of cement back and I just happened to start right here. And I think I picked a real good place for not knowing what I was doing."

For three years, Knight built his testament to God and Jesus out of watered-down cement and sand, until one day when it literally exploded in a cloud of dust. Knight began to rebuild the mountain, this time using adobe clay, which he has continued to work on to this day. Currently, he lives in a donated truck converted into a house near the base of the mountain and spends his days maintaining it and building the adjacent "Museum," an enormous dome of straw bales, adobe, auto glass, wood and paint.

On March 22, 2008 a old boat from the local area was donated to Leonard. He plans to create a "Noah's Ark" scene with it for his mountain.

Film

Leonard Knight prominently appears in the award winning feature documentary "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea", where he is interviewed - http://www.saltonseadoc.com/. The DVD of the film also includes a short film on him, called "Leonard & the Mountain."
Knight appeared in the 2007 Oscar-nominated film "Into the Wild", in which he played himself. The film is based on the true story of the travels of Christopher McCandless, who visited Knight in December 1991.

References

* Knight, Leonard and Larry Yust. "Salvation Mountain: The Art of Leonard Knight" New Leaf Press, 1998. ISBN 096607789X
* [http://www.saltonseadoc.com/ Documentary - "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea"] - narrated by John Waters

Persondata
NAME=Knight, Leonard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Artist and architect of Salvation Mountain
DATE OF BIRTH=November 1, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH=Vermont, U.S.
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=