Mount Davidson (California)
At 928 feet, Mount Davidson is the highest natural point in San Francisco, and it wears a 103-foot concrete cross on its summit like a crown. Every Easter, the cross is illuminated. Every April 24, it hosts a commemoration of the Armenian genocide. In 1971, Clint Eastwood confronted a fictional serial killer at its base. In 1991, the ACLU sued the city for owning it. The cross has been the subject of more arguments than most religious symbols, and it is still standing.
From Sutro's Summit to Davidson's Name
In April 1865, when news of Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox reached San Francisco, a patriotic citizen named Matilda Heron sent a messenger to the summit to raise the Stars and Stripes. Adolph Sutro, the mining engineer and future mayor, purchased the land in 1881. After his death, the highest of the San Miguel hills was renamed Mount Davidson to honor George Davidson, a charter member of the Sierra Club. The appraiser for Sutro's heirs, A.S. Baldwin, bought the mountain's western slope in 1911. His wife later donated six acres at the summit to the city. The park that surrounds the cross today is bordered by Miraloma Park to the east and Westwood Highlands and Sherwood Forest to the southwest, residential neighborhoods that feel miles from downtown despite being a short bus ride away.
Dirty Harry and the Fog
Director Don Siegel filmed a pivotal scene from the 1971 movie Dirty Harry at the cross. Harry Callahan enters the park from Lansdale Avenue and confronts the serial killer Scorpio at the base of the monument. According to Warner Bros., Siegel was thrilled to discover the enormous cross at Mount Davidson but quickly learned that its height and the persistent fog made filming nearly impossible. Every night for a month, cinematographer Bruce Surtees rode a crane to the top of the cross only to be defeated by the weather. When the fog finally cleared, the shot was completed in a single night. Two years later, the cross appeared again in an episode of The Streets of San Francisco, with a Scorpio-like villain crashing a hijacked school bus at its foot.
The Cross on Trial
In 1991, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Congress, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued San Francisco over its ownership of the cross, arguing it violated the separation of church and state. After years of litigation and a loss at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the city auctioned 0.38 acres of land including the cross to the highest bidder in 1997. The Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California purchased it and installed a bronze plaque memorializing the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide. On Armenian Independence Day, September 23, 2007, the 160-pound plaque was discovered missing. It was never found. A replacement was dedicated in April 2008. The cross itself, now on privately owned land surrounded by public parkland, continues to be illuminated at Easter and to serve as a memorial that has outlasted every challenge to its existence.
From the Air
Located at 37.74°N, 122.45°W, Mount Davidson is the highest point in San Francisco at 928 ft elevation. The 103-foot concrete cross on the summit is potentially visible from altitude. Nearest airports: SFO (KSFO, 9 nm south), Oakland (KOAK, 13 nm east). The summit stands distinctly above surrounding residential neighborhoods.