Colorado's Mount Lindo Cross
The mountain had been used in the past by Native Americans as a watch point and signal station. In the 1930s, George Olinger, Sr., founder of the Olinger Mortuary, acquired the mountain and named it "Monte Lindo," for "beautiful mountain." Gradually, the mountain became known as Mount Lindo. Olinger planned a subdivision for the mountain and it had limited success. In the 1950s, Olinger sold the mountain to Francis S. Vanderbur. Once when Vanderbur was visiting the mountain with his father, Francis C. Vanderbur, the elder remarked to his son, "I'd like to be entombed up here, and I want a cross to mark the spot." A mausoleum was built in 1963 and named the Garden of the Cross. Upon the 1964 death of Francis C. Vanderbur, his body was entombed in the Garden of the Cross and his son ordered the construction of a cross on the mountain that would be visible to his widowed mother, Pearl Vanderbur, from her Denver home. Dwight Johnson, vice president and lighting engineer for Sturgeon Electric Company, was assigned the job. The cross was 390' tall and 254' wide and its 20,000 watts of fluorescent light were easily seen from Denver when it was illuminated in 1964. The Olinger Cross took first place for Johnson in the International Lighting Competition in New York in 1965. In 1967, the Mausoleum of the Cross was built at the top of the mountain.
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