Olivia Allen-Worth: San Francisco is probably not considered considered one of America’s most non secular cities as of late, however the place is known as for St. Francis of Assisi. He’s the patron saint of animals, the surroundings and the nation of Italy, which if you concentrate on town’s historical past has turned out to be a reasonably apt identify. 

San Francisco has a protracted custom of numerous non secular apply. One place that hints at this historical past is on San Francisco’s highest peak, Mount Davidson. Search for and also you’ll discover a large concrete cross on the prime, one which a few of you have got been questioning about.

Julia Thollaug: Hello, Bay Curious. I’m Julia Thollaug. I grew up in and round San Francisco.

Phil Montalvo: My identify is Phil Montalvo. I’m a local San Franciscan.

Julia Thollaug: I’ve at all times seen the cross and simply questioned why it was there, the place it got here from.

Phil Montalvo: Rising up within the Outer Mission, Crocker Amazon, the cross was at all times in view. I by no means understood when it was constructed and even why it’s nonetheless up on Mount Davidson.

Julia Thollaug and Phil Montalvo collectively: What’s the cope with the enormous cross on the highest of Mount Davidson?

Olivia Allen-Worth: Immediately on Bay Curious, we inform the story of how San Francisco ended up with a cross at its highest level. This story first aired in 2021, and we’re sharing it once more as a result of, properly, there’s an occasion developing that makes it form of noteworthy at this cut-off date. You’ll see. You’ll see.

I’m Olivia Allen-Worth, you’re listening to Be Curious. 

Sponsor message

Olivia Allen-Worth: What’s the cope with that Mount Davidson cross? We despatched KQED producer Suzie Racho to seek out out.

Suzie Racho: Simply west of Twin Peaks, rising above a quiet residential neighborhood is Mount Davidson Park. It’s not well-known or well-marked, however when you begin strolling one of many park’s trails, you’re surrounded by eucalyptus bushes, and also you begin to overlook that you simply’re in the course of a serious metropolis. 

Suzie Racho in scene: I’m developing the path. I’m a little bit out of breath, however wow, what an incredible view. 

Suzie Racho: Whenever you get to the highest, you see two issues: a view that stretches all the best way to the East Bay and one very huge cross. The cross is an imposing sight. It stands at 103 ft tall and 10 ft huge on the base. Product of concrete, it stands in stark distinction to blue sky and the eucalyptus grove that surrounds it. To be taught extra about the way it received right here, I went to Mount Davidson’s resident historian.

 Jackie Proctor: Hello, I’m Jackie Proctor.

Suzie Racho: Jackie says the cross’s origin story goes again nearly 100 years to 1923, to a time when the realm was a forest.

Jackie Proctor: A man named James Decatur, who’s an worker of the Western Union Telegraph Firm, and adopted with the YMCA, hikes by means of that forest and involves the highest and he sees this unbelievable view of downtown. And he’s simply overwhelmed and impressed and he writes this lengthy essay in regards to the expertise.

Voice over for James Decatur: Peace and quiet had been so profound that it appeared nearly unbelievable that the noise and roar of an important metropolis was only some minutes behind them. The solitude of the forest conveyed a way of vastness fairly as actual as one would expertise among the many age-old monarchs of the Excessive Sierras.

Jackie Proctor: He’s impressed then to construct a cross to crown the best level of town.

Suzie Racho: Decatur thought it might be an ideal place to carry an Easter dawn service. Holding non secular ceremonies in pure settings was a development on the time. Jackie says that individuals had been pushing again in opposition to the materialism of the Roaring Twenties, reconnecting with the pure and non secular worlds. So it wasn’t arduous to seek out assist for his thought. 

A number of of Mount Davidson’s trails had already been established by its landowner, a neighborhood developer named A.S. Baldwin. Baldwin was already beginning to construct homes within the surrounding space. He noticed the Easter service as a option to introduce extra individuals to the brand new neighborhoods west of Twin Peaks. So Baldwin not solely provides Decatur permission to carry the occasion, however donates $2,000 to get a 40-foot-tall wood cross constructed. That’s practically $31,000 right now — a hefty contribution. 

Jackie Proctor: 5,000 individuals hike up that hill in 1923.

Suzie Racho: The service obtained enthusiastic backing from metropolis officers, non secular leaders and group teams. Boy Scouts camped out the evening earlier than and acted as ushers for attendees. The Dean of Grace Cathedral led the service.

Jackie Proctor: James Decatur thinks, nice, that is nice. I had no thought 5,000 individuals would come, so let’s do it once more. 

Suzie Racho: Decatur raises cash for an even bigger wood cross for the service the next yr, however it wouldn’t be the final service or the final cross.

Jackie Proctor: The primary one was simply torn down and changed, after which the second was burned down, after which, the third one was burnt down.

Suzie Racho: Native newspapers report the fires as unintended or vandalism by bored youngsters. Every momentary cross was changed because the now annual service received increasingly more standard, drawing tens of 1000’s of individuals.

Jackie Proctor: Persons are dressed up. They’re sporting their fancy footwear and their fur coats and the whole lot. It was like, , this unbelievable civic occasion.

Suzie Racho: However it was nonetheless being held on personal land, land that was starting to fill with newly constructed homes. 

The encroaching growth alarmed nature lover Maddie Brown. In 1926, she led a marketing campaign to induce town to purchase 25 acres on Mount Davidson to create a public park. Bolstered by ladies’s teams throughout town, the three-year marketing campaign was successful. She even gained the assist of Baldwin’s widow, Emma. Who donated the six acres on the peak. In 1929, Mount Davidson turned a metropolis park. That put the cross on public land. Supporters eagerly started planning for a extra everlasting cross, one which couldn’t be blown or burned down.

Jackie Proctor studying: And earlier than 32,000 individuals on the 1932 Dawn occasion, Governor Roth devoted the cornerstone of the brand new 103-foot-high concrete cross.

Suzie Racho: It took two years and $20,000 to construct the large concrete cross. That’s nearly $400,000 right now. And by the point it was accomplished, the nation was within the Nice Despair. However the individuals nonetheless needed a grand celebration. 12 large floodlights had been put in on poles surrounding the cross. Maddy Brown envisioned a dramatic second when the lights can be switched on for the primary time. She wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, asking him to do the honors.

Voice Over: It appears most acceptable that the President, who has introduced gentle into many a darkened American dwelling, and who by means of his new deal has instilled the ideas of the Golden Rule into American enterprise, ought to participate on this cross-lighting ceremony.

Suzie Racho: Western Union donates their time and their telegraph strains, offering a coast-to-coast hookup between Washington, D.C. And San Francisco. And on the night of March 24, 1934, President Roosevelt pressed the button that despatched electrical energy throughout the nation to gentle the Mount Davidson Cross. That Easter, 50,000 individuals journeyed to the monument. The cross turned a San Francisco landmark. It made an look within the Clint Eastwood film Soiled Harry in 1971. 

Soiled Harry clip: Now flip, face the cross. 

Suzie Racho: However had largely stayed out of the information till the early 90s. That’s when the difficulty of a cross on public land turns into a lawsuit. Teams involved in regards to the separation of church and state, together with the ACLU, sue town. After a number of years, the courts rule that metropolis possession of the cross violates the California Structure’s separation of church and state. San Francisco has to seek out somebody to purchase the cross or tear it down.

Jackie Proctor: So then town decides they’re going to promote the land across the cross, and the cross. And so they must promote it with no circumstances. So whoever buys it may possibly tear the cross down, or they will…

Suzie Racho: Our historian Jackie, a longtime Mount Davidson resident, remembers the controversy vividly.

Jackie Proctor: Involved about that. I’m not a spiritual particular person. I form of simply noticed the cross as like a relic of the despair, one other public works challenge.

Suzie Racho: In 1997, San Francisco settles on a plan to public sale off the cross and the little over a 3rd of an acre that it sits on. They require any bidder to maintain the location open to the general public. The town units the opening bid at $20,000. Three teams are all in favour of shopping for and preserving the cross, the Pals of Mount Davidson Conservancy, of which Jackie was a member, the Museum of the Metropolis of San Francisco, and the Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California. 

Roxanne Makassian: Most Armenian People, together with these within the San Francisco Bay Space, are descendants of the few survivors of the Armenian Genocide, which was carried out by the Turkish leaders of the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Suzie Racho: Roxanne Makassian is a member of the Armenian Council. She says that descendants usually construct two issues within the locations the place they settled, church buildings and a genocide memorial.

Roxanne Makassian: The Armenians stated, , this is able to make an important monument for us to recollect the Armenian genocide and perhaps to coach locals about it. 

Suzie Racho: On the public sale, the museum doesn’t go previous their opening bid of $20,000. The neighborhood group bids $25,000, however helps the Armenian group after agreeing they each need the identical issues for the park.

Jackie Proctor: We thought, properly, they appear like they actually care about sustaining the realm for public entry. That was our objective.

Suzie Racho: Immediately the cross is lit two nights a yr, April twenty fourth to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, and the evening earlier than Easter. The annual dawn service nonetheless exists, right now it’s non-denominational, and some hundred individuals normally present up. Not fairly the identical scene because the 1000’s who appeared of their finery within the Nineteen Twenties and 30s. However Jackie says, with out the dawn service Mount Davidson would look very completely different right now.

Jackie Proctor: You realize, if we didn’t have the dawn service, we wouldn’t have a park there now. And it might have been coated with homes and buildings or the whole lot like many of the different hills of San Francisco. 

Olivia Allen-Worth: This yr’s dawn service takes place at 6.30 a.m on April fifth. Discover particulars at mtdavidson.org. 

Have you ever signed up for the Bay Curious e-newsletter but? It’s filled with Bay Space trivia, extra solutions to your questions, and normally some cool pictures. Enroll at baycurious.org slash e-newsletter. 

This episode was produced by Suzie Racho, Katie McMurran, Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia Allen-Worth. Bay Curious is a manufacturing of member-supported KQED in San Francisco. 

It’s pledge season, and meaning we want your assist. Give any quantity that works to your finances at kqed.org slash donate. 

Some members of the KQED podcast staff are represented by the Display screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Tv and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Native.