Holy Cross

Colorado

66th National Monument

1,392 Acres

Established by Presidential Proclamation: May 11, 1929 by President Herbert Hoover

Abolished as a National Monument: August 3, 1950 by the 81st Congress

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Cross_National_Monument

Originally managed by the U. S. Forest Service (USFS), the monument was transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) by President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 6166 on June 10, 1933. It was transferred back to the USFS in 1950.

Sometime around 1912, based on the famous photo above, pilgrimages began occurring to view the mountain, and these peaked in the late 1920s, when the monument was established, with several hundred attending an annual pilgrimage each year. Some believed, according to National Parks Traveler, that "the huge cross was actually a Holy Cross that God placed there on the mountainside as a sign to endorse Christianity." Some even went so far as to believe that the cross "possess[ed] curative and restorative powers."

Pilgrimage sites included the Pilgrim's Hut, built in the mid-1920, on nearby Notch Mountain which provided a view of the cross, shelter, and even a venue for Sunday mass, and the Bowl of Tears Lake under the cross, where people would collect "holy water." The hut still exists today and is now better known as the Notch Mountain Shelter.

During the Great Depression, fewer and fewer visitors made the trip and, according to Colorado Central Magazine, "in 1938, the area was closed to the public because it became part of the Camp Hale Military Reservation, and it stayed off limits until after World War II. "

In many ways this sealed the fate of the monument. "By the late 1940s, declining pilgrimage activity, unreasonably high staffing expenses, and marring of the Holy Cross by rockslides and erosion (especially affecting the cross's 'right arm') had diminished the viability of Holy Cross National Monument to the point that its continuation could not be justified. "

The monument was administered by Rocky Mountain National Park, and as visitation dipped below 50 visitors a year, the superintendent recommended the abolishment of the monument and the transfer of the site back to the USFS. Congress made it so on August 2, 1950.

In 1980, the mountain became the centerpiece of the 120,000 acre Holy Cross Wilderness Area in the White River National Forest.