Mount Davidson is San Francisco's highest point. At its summit, hidden in a eucalyptus forest, stands a concrete cross 103 feet tall and 10 feet wide at the base.
Five crosses
KQED traces the cross to 1923, when a Western Union employee proposed an Easter sunrise service on the peak. The service drew about 5,000 people. The landowner, developer A.S. Baldwin, gave $2,000 for a 40-foot wooden cross. Over the years there have been five crosses. The Council of Armenian-American Organizations of Northern California, which owns the current one, says the third was burned by arsonists in 1931.
A park and FDR
KQED says resident Madie Brown began campaigning in 1926 to protect the summit, Baldwin's widow, Emma, donated the six acres at the peak, and it became a city park in 1929. The current cross went up starting in 1932, taking about two years and $20,000. In March 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a gold telegraph key in Washington to light it. About 50,000 people came to the summit that Easter.
The court fight
In 1991, church-state separation advocates sued over a religious symbol on city land. The council names Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and KQED's account mentions the ACLU. The courts ruled the city had to sell the land or tear the cross down. In 1997, KQED reports, the city sold a little over a third of an acre under it for $26,000. The council says voters approved the sale through Proposition F on Nov. 4, 1997. The council bought the land to keep the cross as a memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
When it's lit
The cross is lit each April 24, the Armenian Genocide remembrance day, and on the night before Easter. The Easter sunrise service continues. Trails through the eucalyptus lead to the summit.