Tuesday, March 2, 1999 | 10:35 a.m.
You'd miss it if you sneezed.
Marked by a couple of white-washed tractor tires off an obscure exit on the highway to Tecopa -- somewhere near the Nye County line -- somewhere in the southwestern Nevada desert -- lies a longtime spiritual sanctuary favored by dusty locals and leg-stretching tourists alike. To the newcomer, Cathedral Canyon looks something more like a ditch than a canyon; the diplomatic refer to it as a gorge.
From the dirt parking lot above, only a rickety cable bridge can be seen spanning its 140-foot width. Inside, about 40 feet below, is a zoo-like display of nearly 100 misfit religious items -- neon-painted Virgin Mary statues, excommunicated stained-glass windows, inspirational passage placards written by famed spiritualists Albert Einstein and Abe Lincoln, and a specially commissioned 25-foot Jesus statue.
Cathedral Canyon is one of the desert's most unlikely endangered species -- a folk art religious sanctuary that some fear will be chased into the history books by the stampede of suburban development.
"Thousands of people have visited and loved that place, and still do," said Marge Taylor, executive director of the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce, who has spearheaded an effort to preserve the canyon. "It's a shame what's happening to it."
The Virgin Marys have faded and cracked. Framed photos are yellowing, dozens of light fixtures are missing bulbs and rusting. The sound system no longer works, and the cream-colored paint on the steep wooden staircase has almost all peeled off, leaving rotting wood planks to creak under every step on the way into the canyon.
The sanctuary began to deterioriate after its owner and founder, Las Vegas attorney Roland H. Wiley, died in 1994.
The 1972 creation of Cathedral Canyon was the culmination of a dream for Wiley, who sank more than $75,000 into its construction and insisted that it be open 24 hours and free to anyone who wanted to visit.
It sits on a small portion of a 12,000-acre plot that straddles the California-Nevada border and now is owned by multiple members of the Wiley family. "It was my grandfather's dream," Mimi Rieker, granddaughter of Roland and Mary Wiley, said. "And it is my grandmother's wish that the canyon be preserved."
Still, the caretaker of the land who is employed by the Wiley family, Al Carpenter, said the property has been for sale for several years. The local buzz is that the land is being sold for the development of a subdivision and golf course. However, family attorney Steven Scow would not confirm the for-sale status of the land.
"I'm not confirming that it's even being offered for sale. We're not commenting on any discussions we're having," Scow said.
Regardless of the Wileys' real estate choices, the desert the canyon sits in is considered plum by developers who are eyeballing Pahrump's outlying areas. Already, a 550-acre subdivision is under construction less than five miles from the Wiley property.
"If it is sold, we would like to make a provision to make sure that the canyon is preserved," Rieker said.
But that may be easier said than done.
Shortly after Roland's death, Taylor, a friend of his, wrote several letters to Wiley's son, Roland J. Wiley, to try to get permission to preserve the canyon for the public.
In time, she received a response:
"(Preserving the canyon is) an intricate and expensive proposition, which must ... remain on the back burner," Roland J. Wiley wrote in a 1996 letter to Taylor. "The canyon is multiply owned. ... (and) does not correspond geographically with the parcel divisions of the land for tax purposes, as established by Clark County. The canyon overlaps at least three parcels, each containing much other property, making necessary an inventive redefinition of current parcel boundaries, with all the attendant legal and bureaucratic requirements, before the canyon could be separated, as it were, from the estate lands around it and itself be intact in one piece."
Scow would not further explain the family's multiple-ownership arrangements.
Taylor contacted and received support from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, and Partners for Sacred Places, a preservation group in Philadelphia. She also stirred interest from the Nevada State Director of Folk Arts. But all of the willing preservationists were stymied without the go-ahead from the Wiley family. Roland J. Wiley never responded further to Taylor's attempts to create a preservation plan, she said.
"Finally, I had to throw my hands into the air and move on," she said. "But I know Roland (senior) would have been so upset. He loved that place. He and I used to sit down there on the picnic tables and eat fried chicken and he'd say this canyon was his dream come true."
Portraits of Einstein, Lincoln and a flathead Indian chief all occupy space in the shadow of the 25-foot Christ of Andes. Evangelist H.L. Moody has a high-profile sign of his own. A pink flamingo lawn ornament stands next to Christ in one display -- although one would suspect, without absolute certainly, that it was placed there recently by pranksters.
Even in its heyday, the cathedral was not a typical religious site.
There is Astroturf nailed to the ground approaching the bridge. There are iron and wood chandeliers hanging from posts stuck in the dirt. Strings of lights drape the canyon walls and floors like the most-talked-about house at Christmas. An enlarged, handwritten letter from a local woman whose son had died is framed and featured at the end of one trailhead. The transformation of the dirt gorge into the eye-candy of Cathedral Canyon began in 1972. Wiley built a sound system and a 30-foot waterfall, and he commissioned the 25-foot Jesus statue from Mexican artist Jose Ramos.
A sign at the top of the canyon, written by Wiley, says:
"Lest we forget, the true value of our coming to this place lies not in finding a new landscape but in having new eyes. It is my hope that this cathedral under the skies will give to you a set of new eyes, and a whole new way of seeing things."
By the 1980s, more than 7,000 visitors had signed the guest books, and Easter services were held there, filling the canyon with both the well-heeled and the tennis-shoe clad worshippers.
Today, with the weathered wires and rusting light fixtures buried in unkempt dry sage brush, the canyon may be a monstrous fire hazard. With its rickety, steep staircase and swinging suspension bridge, it also may be a giant personal injury lawsuit waiting to be filed.
Still, tourists flock here. More than 250 visitors signed the guest book in February.
Their written comments range from the spiritually moved to the practically concerned:
"God -- I love this place," Las Vegan Dale Allen wrote.
"Too bad it's not kept up," Marie Molee of Henderson wrote. (Although attorney Scow said that the property is "fairly well maintained.")
"It would be beautiful if someone would restore it," Californian Kay Tubbs wrote.
On one recent sunny afternoon, two middle-aged women on their way from California to Las Vegas stopped to stretch their legs.
"It feels really spiritual to me," said one woman in a church whisper. "I'm not even a terribly religious person, but I can feel the spirit of my son, who passed away, when I stand in here. This could be a beautiful place."
archive
