{"id":2173,"slug":"bald-knob-cross-of-peace-alto-pass-illinois","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Bald Knob Cross of Peace was paid for partly in pigs. The 111-foot white cross on the Illinois Ozark summit — visible for miles over the Shawnee National Forest, dedicated with the words Peace, Hope, Faith, Charity carved into its granite base — began in 1937 as a sunrise service. Wayman Presley, a rural mail carrier, and his pastor Rev. W.H. Lirely decided the hilltop needed a place where people of every denomination could worship; two hundred fifty came to the first Easter dawn, thousands the next years, and the services became a fixture before the cross existed.","The fundraising was the story — 116 people from thirty-four communities in five states pledged $100 each to buy the mountain; the General Federation of Women's Clubs took it up nationally; Presley went on 'This Is Your Life' and the letters came stacked in piles on his desk; and somewhere in the campaign somebody devised the pig scheme — farmers raised hogs, sold them, and turned the profits over to the cross. Thirty thousand dollars came from pigs. Presley left his postal route to fundraise full-time.","The cross was completed in 1963 — 170 tons of steel framework, nine hundred porcelain-white panels, on 730 tons of concrete anchored twenty feet to bedrock — and lit the next year, glowing over the Ozark hills the mail carrier had picked for it in 1936.","The Cross of Peace is the archive's pig file — the 111-foot cross on Bald Knob raised by $30,000 in donated hogs, a mail carrier's persistence, and a television appearance, on the hill where the sunrise services began in 1937."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Bald Knob Cross of Peace is the archive's fundraiser file — the 111-foot cross completed 1963 on the Illinois Ozark summit, funded by 116 founding pledgers, a national women's-club campaign, a 'This Is Your Life' appearance, and $30,000 raised by selling pigs.","A cross built by pigs keeps its hill — the file's suggestion being that Bald Knob's hold is the funding: the hogs, the letters, the mail carrier's route abandoned for the cause, under the cross that still lights the Shawnee hills."]}],"name":"Bald Knob Cross of Peace","aliases":[],"type":"MONUMENT","type_label":"Monument","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HISTORIC_SITE","UNUSUAL_SITE"],"groups":["historic-sites","legends"],"desc":"The 111-foot cross on the Shawnee ridge—built 1963, rebuilt 2008.","full_desc":"A monument in Alto Pass, Illinois, built in 1963, Bald Knob Cross of Peace is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The 111-foot cross on the Shawnee ridge—built 1963, rebuilt 2008. It sits in the archive under local folklore and unusual sites. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Alto Pass","county":null,"state":"Illinois","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":37.5522,"lon":-89.3436,"coord_kind":"EXACT","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":1963,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"New record from encyclopedia/official-source pass; VERIFY task auto-queued for primary-source corroboration.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":70,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0.85,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1433,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Visitors report a presence on the ridge and lights near the cross. The site in Alto Pass, Illinois gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. The report is preserved in sources like 'Bald Knob Cross'. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Bald Knob Cross","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Knob_Cross","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Erected 1963; the replacement cross was dedicated 2008. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The detail is preserved in 'Bald Knob Cross'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from. The account stays in the file — reported, retold, unresolved.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1963","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Bald Knob Cross","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Knob_Cross","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Visitors report a presence on the ridge and lights near the cross. The reports at Bald Knob Cross of Peace are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. The retelling is the record now — the legend metabolized the facts long ago.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Bald Knob Cross","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Knob_Cross","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Public monument or marker; accessible from public rights-of-way.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Bald Knob Cross","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Knob_Cross","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Bald Knob Cross","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Knob_Cross","desc":"Monument in Illinois, USA","extract":"Bald Knob Cross, officially known as the Bald Knob Cross of Peace, is a large white cross located in Alto Pass, Illinois, United States. The structure is 111 feet (34 m) tall.  The base of the cross is 1,034 feet above sea level and overlooks the Shawnee National Forest. Originally completed in 1963, the cross itself  stands 111 feet tall, is 22 feet square at the base, 16 feet square at the top and its arms extend 63 feet horizontally. The exterior white panels covering the cross are 4-inch architectural flat insulated metal panels while the base portion is covered in granite approximately 4-inches thick. The structure sits on a foundation of 730 tons of reinforced concrete that goes down 2","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Bald_Knob_Cross_of_Peace.jpg/960px-Bald_Knob_Cross_of_Peace.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":71},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}