Rolling Mountain Thunder

Photograph by Richard Menzies

Frank Van Zant wanted to make a statement that would last, and few things last as well as concrete in the desert. So when Van Zant’s 1948 Chevy truck broke down two hours east of Reno, sometime in the summer of 1968, he decided to take it as a sign.

He set up camp and started scavenging — metal, glass, old cars, a typewriter — whatever he could get. Then he bought sacks of concrete, and without any art background, this retired sheriff and World War II vet began shaping Thunder Mountain Monument alongside Interstate 80, a memorial to the plight of Native Americans.

“No other person has duplicated what he did with concrete freehand,” says Van Zant’s son, Daniel Van Zant, who now owns the land and the structure outside of Imlay, Nev. “Concrete wants to drop. It’s not easy to get that wet and heavy material to stay in place.”

Daniel says his dad built the main monument building with 2× 4 framing, marine-quality plywood, and concrete that he smeared on with his bare hands. “I never saw him use tools with the concrete.

His hands were always bloody and calloused, and sometimes he had to wait for them to heal up before he could go on.”

Today, the structure sits open and unattended, a roadside attraction that evokes a different time. Back in the day, young hippies on the road west would stop and accept shelter in a hostel building on the site, helping out and learning from the sculptor who by then had taken the name Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder.

But the hostel eventually burned down, the 60s became the 70s and then the 80s, and Van Zant ended his days alone at the monument — just him and the 200 statues of Indians he had fashioned with wet concrete and his bare hands.

—Dave Sims

>> Thunder Mountain: thundermountainmonument.com

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