Combination homestead and roadside attraction, this outsider art spectacle was at one time a number of sprawling plots filled with crosses, hand painted machinery and a lot of metal things scrawled with statements bearing a distinctly southern ‘turn or burn’ version of religion.

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.

There is also a small family cemetery on the property that is nestled between biblical signage and weeds. It appears to be Rice’s grandparents although I’m not 100% certain. There are at least 2 graves visible but there appear to be more under some wood shelters and the aforementioned weeds. Rice himself is buried elsewhere in an established cemetery off property.

Now after almost 20 years after his death, the space has been hit hard by neglect, vandalism and the creeping vines of tenacious thorny weeds.

A few tips: it’s visible from the somewhat busy residential road and the overall installation is made up of several sections – some are blocked off, some open to explorations and some are on private property where his widow still lives so please be respectful. The family cemetery is located behind a small fence and you can easily view it from there but any closer inspection is not encouraged.