A white cross stands high above the Snoqualmie Valley on the “haystack,” the highest point on Mount Si. It was erected by a group of men who felt that the cross, and all it means to the Christian world, would provide a spiritual lift to all who see it there.

Elmer Schultz suggested to Harold Keller that a cross be put on the mountain. These two men served as unofficial “coordinators” for the job but the nine others who volunteered their time and labor worked just as hard – Jim McDevitt, Grant Ford, John Garrett, Bud Dungan, George Siefferman, Chuck Forsythe, Warren Wallace, Wayne Halverson and Dave McConkey.

The project was off to an official start on Saturday, Aug. 12, when the State Department of Natural Resources at North Bend, through forester John Buchanan, provided transportation for Keller Schultz, McDevitt and Grant Farr to a point at the end of the logging road on the mountain. Materials were moved by these four to this point, in readiness for the party which was to ascend the mountain Sunday, the 13th.

It was decided that a natural crevice in shale rock would, with some additional drilling, provide an excellent base for the cross. Troy Warren, a Department of Natural Resources employee, drove Keller and Schultz to the road-end when they did this work in mid-July, so actually the project was begun that long ago.

To set the cross into the rock, cement, sand and water were needed, so these materials and the cross itself were back-packed in from the point where the truck left them. This involved hiking a half mile to a landmark called “the saddle” and then using hands and feet to make the final ascent to the top of the haystack.

Sand, in 25-pound sacks, was divided up among the climbers. Ten gallons of water also was carted in and then there was the cross itself. Made of 2-inch pipe, it was carried to the top in two sections. It was imbedded three feet into the ground in concrete, and was reinforced by putting some steel and concrete inside the pipe at ground level and where the cross-arms are attached.

The cross measures 14 feet from the ground to its top, and eight feet across the arms. It was pained white and then sand crystals were scattered in the paint in the hope it would reflect moonlight.