Kay's Cross was a large stone cross (roughly 20 feet (6.1 m) high by 13 feet (4.0 m) wide) located in northeastern Kaysville, Utah, US The monument is rumored to have been erected by polygamists in the 1940s, but the exact age is disputed; another common rumor is that the cross was built by early settlers of the town to mark a grave of either his wife, or entire family. Interestingly, the hollow in which the cross stood was owned in the 1940s by Charles and Ethel Kingston, founders of the infamous polygamist Kingston clan. They may have been the ones who built the cross where the patriarch of the family received his "vision" to found the church, however the religious affiliations to early polygamists in the area is disputed because the FLDS church, and polygamist splinter-groups from the mainstream LDS Church do not use the cross as a symbol of their faith or their religious activities, the Apostolic United Brethren being the sole exception. More recently, it has been asserted that the cross was built by followers of Krishna Venta, a religious leader in the 1940s and 50s, who claimed to be the Second Coming of Christ and led a small sect based out of Simi Valley, California.
While the origins of the cross are unknown, its demise was well known and publicized. On February 25, 1992, at 10 pm, local residents heard a loud boom. This boom was the explosion of Kay's Cross, which had been packed with explosives and blown into several large pieces. The police have never made an arrest in connection with this case. Some people still believe that the explosion was not man made, others believe the police did it themselves because they were tired of responding to calls to the remote location.
During the 1980s, curious grade school children from nearby Samuel Morgan Elementary School would wander down into Kay's Hollow to see the cross and recount the legends surrounding its origin and current uses. Legends regarding Kay's Cross are abundant, ranging from "dog men" to spousal murder and satanic rituals.
Today, even though access to the remains of the cross has been surrounded by subdivisions, and with policemen almost nightly patrolling the site for trespassers on the property, the cross remains a local legend with high interest and is still visited by many teenagers and young adults.
Famous quotes containing the words kay and/or cross:
“It’s an old trick now, God knows, but it works every time. At the very moment women start to expand their place in the world, scientific studies deliver compelling reasons for them to stay home.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“It is an agreeable change to cross a lake, after you have been shut up in the woods, not only on account of the greater expanse of water, but also of sky. It is one of the surprises which Nature has in store for the traveler in the forest. To look down, in this case, over eighteen miles of water, was liberating and civilizing even.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)