Thunder Mountain Monument.
Out in the middle of nowhere south of Interstate 80 near Imlay, Nevada, is a massive conglomeration of quirky sculptures made of various collected items, including old cars, bottles, railroad ties, machinery, wheels, and a bucket load of concrete.
Constructed over four decades, beginning in 1967, Frank Van Zant built the folk art “sculpture” of concrete and junk as a tribute to the Native American plight.
Frank Van Zant, who had some Creek Indian heritage, came from Oklahoma. After serving in World War II, he came to Nevada and worked various jobs, including logging, mining, truck driving, and as a preaching minister.
Somewhere along the line, Van Zant met an old medicine woman who told him, “In the final days, there shall rise a place called Thunder Mountain.” She said that only those who lived at Thunder Mountain would survive the apocalypse.
After this talk with the medicine woman, Van Zant changed his name to Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder. Before long, he moved his family to the desert and began to build the monument. From a nearby junkyard came a treasure trove of building supplies, such as farm equipment, typewriters, car hoods, and wheels.
When Van Zandt was alive, he lived with his family in a three-story house made of bottles and concrete. Spires and pretzels of painted concrete from the roof shoot out in all directions, culminating in a dome skeleton. The house’s windows are made from automobile windshields.
Thunder Mountain Monument.
Over the years, Chief Thunder and his friends erected several unusual buildings from roadside junk, boards, and metal from abandoned buildings. With the enormous quantities of concrete used, Van Zandt calculated that his fantastic home would last a thousand years. Elsewhere on the property are concrete totem poles, rusted refrigerator doors serving as billboards for political statements, baby doll heads stuck on tree branches, and blue glass pole insulators everywhere.
Chief Thunder continued his work on the site until 1989. At the age of 69, he committed suicide, some say because he had completed his masterpiece.
Though Thunder Mountain has been designated a Nevada State Historic Site and a National Monument, it has suffered neglect and vandalism since Chief Thunder is no longer there to oversee it. His son, Daniel Van Zant, has led an effort to save the site, and some repairs have begun to be made.
The main home is no longer occupied, and no park rangers or tour guides are at the site. When you visit, be sure to leave a donation in the big metal box at the beginning of the walkway through the grounds.
Thunder Mountain Park is between Winnemucca and Lovelock off I-80, about 120 miles east of Reno, Nevada.
Contact Information:
Thunder Mountain Monument LLC
P.O. Box 162
Imlay, Nevada 89418
©Kathy Alexand/Legends of America, updated February 2025.
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