What is Mount Rushmore?

Mount Rushmore is a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota featuring the 60 foot high faces of four American presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, representing the founding, growth, development, and preservation of the United States. The sculpture was conceived in 1923 by South Dakota historian Doane Robinson, who wanted to attract tourists to the Black Hills. Robinson hired Danish-American sculptor Gutzon Borglum to design and execute the work. Borglum chose the four presidents to represent the first 150 years of American history.

Construction began on October 4, 1927 with President Calvin Coolidge dedicating the project. Carving continued through 1941, with about 400 workers using dynamite to remove most of the granite (about 90 percent) and pneumatic drills, jackhammers, and hand tools to do the finer detail. Despite the dangerous work, no workers died during construction, although many suffered injuries. Funding came primarily from the federal government with private donations. The total cost was about 989,000 dollars, equivalent to roughly 21 million dollars today.

Gutzon Borglum died on March 6, 1941, and his son Lincoln Borglum supervised the final work, which was halted on October 31, 1941 due to lack of funding and the entry of the United States into World War II. The original plan called for the figures to be carved from head to waist, but only the heads were completed. Each face is about 60 feet tall, with eyes about 11 feet wide, noses about 20 feet long, and mouths about 18 feet wide.

The four presidents and their selection rationale: George Washington (Father of the Country, founding); Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence, completed the Louisiana Purchase, expansion); Theodore Roosevelt (champion of conservation, the Panama Canal, and the Progressive era, development); and Abraham Lincoln (preserver of the Union and emancipator, preservation). The monument is administered by the National Park Service and draws about 2 to 3 million visitors per year. Mount Rushmore National Memorial occupies 1,278 acres in the Black Hills.

The monument has long been controversial. The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux, who were promised the land in perpetuity by the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 but lost it after gold was discovered in 1874 and the U.S. seized the territory after the Great Sioux War of 1876 to 1877. The Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the seizure was illegal and ordered compensation, which the Sioux nations have refused, demanding return of the land instead. Crazy Horse Memorial nearby, begun in 1948 and still unfinished, honors the Lakota war leader.