12-foot-tall Christmas cross towers above Bull Shoals Lake


Nial Castle and his wife Georgette share a selfie with the 12-foot-tall Christmas cross erected on their property at Ozark Country Estates south of Theodosia. The cross, covered with thousands of multicolored lights, is visible from Bull Shoals Lake.

The Christmas cross on Nial Castle’s property on Eagle Wing Drive overlooks a memorial to the late Grant Finley, who developed the fly-in community off NN Highway south of Theodosia.

For several years, Nial Castle has wanted to build a lighted Christmas decoration on his property at 837 Eagle Wing Drive south of Theodosia that would be visible from a wide area, including from Bull Shoals Lake, below. Finally, this year, he carried out his plan. The result is a 12-foot-tall Christmas cross covered with thousands of multicolored lights that stands high above the mouth of Heck Hollow on the lake across from Point 13, roughly the halfway mark between Pontiac and Theodosia. 

Castle spent 30 hours making the cross from a 12-foot-long piece of 6x6 pine, adding a crossbar and wrapping the structure with 20 boxes of Christmas lights. He used a tractor loader to drop the upright into a concrete-and-steel brace he had constructed and then plugged the light strings into a timer so that it’s lit each night until 2 a.m. The result, he said, is “absolutely striking.” 

Besides being a beautiful symbol of the season, it also serves as a personal memorial to Castle’s mother, who died a year ago. Fifteen minutes after Castle finished the massive cross last weekend, he said, a bald eagle soared by. “I keep wondering if that bald eagle could have been her,” Castle told the Times Monday.

He and his wife, Georgette, made a one-minute video of their work and set it to music. It can be viewed at https://photos.app.goo.gl/rLHj24hgZqmfAa4P6

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423