W.C. Rice's Cross GardenW.C. Rice (1930 - 2004)
Threatened
Autauga County Road 86, Prattville, AL, 36067, United States
begun late 1990s
About the Artist/Site
William Carlton Rice, a house painter, claimed God healed him of an ulcerated stomach on the night of April 24, 1960. A gentle, soft-spoken man, Rice’s salvation launched decades of unusual evangelical advertising near his home in Prattville, Alabama: The self-ordained minister built a Cross Garden on three acres along Autauga County Road 85 that would eventually be visited by people from all over the world, and described in many books and blogs.
By the late 1990s, Rice had installed hundreds of white, wooden crosses, all dabbed with red paint, around his brick home and along the county road. Crosses ranged in size from recycled telephone poles to pencil-thin constructions he gathered into dense, freestanding sculptures or suspended in trees with string. He matched his cross displays with as many—if not more—hand-painted admonitions and apocalyptic warnings such as “Hell is Hot” and “Sinners Burn in Hell.” To casual passersby, Rice’s fervent “fire and brimstone” messages could be scary; they also made most stop and take notice. Any object was fair game for a message. Abandoned washing machines, upright refrigerators, rusted tin, old boards, cinder blocks—even wrecked cars were covered with pronouncements about salvation and hell.
Rice built a small, wooden roadside chapel that he also covered with crosses and signs. Sometimes wearing a 14-inch cross around his neck, he regularly welcomed visitors there during the 1980s and 1990s, distributing his own tracts, and praying with believers if they wished to do so. His home was also packed with crosses and religious figurines, and his truck was adorned with crosses and messages.
Since Rice’s death, his wife, Marzell, and their children have tended the Cross Garden, just as he asked them to do. It is easy to view from either side of County Road 86, north of Highway 15 at Indian Hill Road in Prattville.
~John Foster
Contributors
Materials
found materials, paint, wood
SPACES Archives Holdings
1 folder: correspondence, clippings (Newspaper articles from 1984 and 1985)
Related Documents
Map & Site Information
Autauga County Road 86
Prattville, AL, 36067
us
Latitude/Longitude: 32.4580817 / -86.51011
Nearby Environments
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Comments
Earl Irvine October 1, 2024
What a joy this was - I recall most of those pictures when they were taken and he was a true aspiration and why i am still alive today. Earl Irvine , Grandson of W.C. Rice “ PawPaw”