Gilgal Sculpture Garden

Gilgal Sculpture Garden is one of Salt Lake City's stranger attractions: a small enclosed park in a residential neighbourhood containing 12 large stone sculptures and 70 carved stones, all created by one man, bricklayer Thomas B.H. Child Jr., between 1945 and 1963. The works draw heavily on LDS scripture and personal symbolism, including a sphinx with the face of Joseph Smith, a figure wearing a Masonic apron, and several carved biblical quotations.

The garden was designated a Salt Lake City landmark in 1991 and is now maintained by the city. Entry is free. It is genuinely unusual — the kind of personal, eccentric, obsessive artistic project that is much more interesting than most official public art — and worth the short detour for anyone with a taste for the odd.

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A story
The garden's most famous work is a sphinx with the head of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. Creator Thomas Child, a bricklayer, spent 18 years carving all the works himself, drawing on biblical and LDS scripture. He buried himself on the site before it was developed as a park — the placement of his grave among the sculptures was intentional.

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