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Mile 1,134: Groom, TX

Giant cross

Ted and I first heard about the giant cross outside Groom, TX, in an episode of This American Life (Episode 202: 12/21/2001). At 190 feet tall, it is purportedly the tallest cross in the Western Hemisphere.

Giant cross In 2003, we flew across the country for the Christmas holiday and were able to see the cross from the air. Ted decided he’d like to see it from the ground this time, so we planned our route to pass through Groom.

The cross is big. Really big. As you approach, it’s a bit hard to tell exactly how big it actually is. There aren’t any large objects around it to use as reference, and your sense of perspective gets all screwy. It’s just as described in the radio segment: at first it looks smaller than the telephone poles, then looms larger as you approach, until it just dominates the landscape.

When you arrive at the foot of the cross, you really get a sense of the enormity of the structure. The shape becomes more abstracted in such close proximity, so they’ve erected smaller, more human-scaled sites around the cross to help provide focus for prayer/meditation and photo ops for the tourists.

Circling the base are benches and life-size statues depicting the stations of the cross