Rice’s Miracle Cross Garden
For nearly half a mile along both sides of a secondary road near Prattville, Alabama, you can see thousands of signs, crosses, wrecked cars, and mailboxes festooned with barbed wire. These forbidding and obsessive emblems are bad enough, but each of them bears a sign with such forthright messages as “Everyone in hell from SEX USED WRONG WAY” and “Hypocrite You Will Die”). This is the work of William C. Rice, who calls it the Miracle Cross Garden. As Rice explains it, the Lord told him to do it in 1976, and when some of his neighbors complain that it is an eyesore that lowers property values, the Reverend claims he is only doing God’s work. The insides of W.C. Rice’s house and chapel are decorated the same way. Now approaching seventy, Rice continues to work on his Cross Garden and to tell visitors of the divine inspiration that led to its creation, reminding them that “Hell is Hot, Hot, Hot!”