Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun
Near Colorado Springs, Colorado
On the flank of Cheyenne Mountain stands a granite tower that sings. In nineteen thirty-four the Colorado Springs magnate Spencer Penrose, the man behind the Pikes Peak Highway, the Broadmoor hotel, and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, began building it as a tomb for himself and his wife Julie. While construction was underway, the beloved humorist Will Rogers died in an Alaska plane crash in nineteen thirty-five, and Penrose renamed the monument the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun.
Finished in nineteen thirty-seven, the tower rises about one hundred feet from granite quarried just seven hundred feet away. It was built without a single nail or piece of wood, bound instead by two hundred thousand pounds of steel and thirty wagonloads of cement. Every quarter hour, Westminster chimes ring out across the foothills, carrying for miles.
Inside the chapel rest the tombs of the Penroses and two of their friends, sealed in the singing stone.
