While the family was visiting we went to visit nearby Bishop's Castle.
Built by one man. The idea of the castle being a one man project was born in the process
of the doing and was not an original intention or a childhood dream. And he kept building. And building. And the Bishop
Castle grew...
The land was purchased in 1959 and Jim Bishop started building in 1969.
As the castle grew, so did word of the guy up in the mountains who was
pursuing the American Dream ~ to be King of your own Castle!
People came
to visit more and more often.
There is no admission charged but there is a donation box and a gift shop.
The gift shop and the donation box are the
primary sources of funding
for the construction of the Bishop Castle.
The proceeds also fund a charity (Bishop Castle Non-Profit Charitable Foundation for New-Born Heart Surgery) that the family set up designed to financially help local
families with medical expenses for young children that aren't covered
by insurance.
Stained Glass Memorials . . .
Custom stained glass memorials can be to memorialize
a wedding at the Castle, or to remember
a loved one.
A local artist is the creator of these exquisite one of a
kind windows,
which Jim Bishop himself installs as permanent
fixtures of the Bishop Castle.
Enter The Dragon . . .
In the mid 1980's, a friend of Jim's was driving a truck
full of
discarded stainless steel warming plates from a hospital
to the local landfill.
He decided that Jim could probably put this motherload
of
expensive stainless steel to better use than the dump could.
Jim spent the
winter building a chimney out of the steel,
riveting thousands of
hammered "scales" that he had cut out
of the plates together around a
steel frame.
The dragon was completed in the spring and Jim hauled it up
the mountain
to tackle the daunting task of raising and installing this
incredible sculpture
to where it rests today perched off of the front
of the Grand Ballroom
eighty feet in the air!
Later on came the addition
of a burner from a hot air balloon (that was donated!)
which Jim put in
the back of the dragons throat,
making it a true Fire Breathing Dragon!
The dragon usually gets fired up weekends through the summer.
For those not afraid of heights!
Every boy dreams of being a knight in shining armor, right?
Final thoughts . . .
Until Next Time!!
