Salvation Mountain grew from Leonard Knight's personal religious intensity into a worldwide phenomenon. Born on November 1, 1931 in Shelburne Falls, Vermont, Leonard found religion in mid-life and rejected what he saw as the complications of all religions, embracing instead a simple belief: repent to Jesus Christ and be forgive of your sins. That struggle for simple faith took him across the United States to Niland, where he remained. Beginning in 1984 as a temporary monument to God's love, the mountain became the work of just under 30 years of daily labor without electricity or running water, created from what Leonard could find at the local dump and what was donated by the faithful or the curious, all to share the message "God is Love." Leonard left the mountain in November of 2011 and died at age 82 on February 10, 2014.