Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, SD. It was sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln. Mount Rushmore features 60 ft sculptures of four U.S. Presidents; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The entire memorial covers 1278 acres and sits at 5,726 ft. above sea level. The total cost was $989,992.32 and was done between Oct 4, 1927 through Oct. 31, 1941. One notable fact is during the entire project there were no deaths of the workers involved in the project.
Mount Rushmore was named after Charles E Rushmore, a New York City attorney. He was in South Dakota in 1884 checking on land titles and asked his guide, Bill Challis what the name of the mountain they were around. Challis said it had no name and named it after him. Since then it has been called Mount Rushmore.
Doane Robinson, South Dakota historian, is credited for having the idea of the sculptures on Mount Rushmore in 1924. He had come up with an idea of carving great Americans on the needles of the Black Hills to bring tourism to the area. He went to Borglum,in 1925, who was involved with the Confederate Memorial carving on Stone Mountain, GA and asked Borglum to come to South Dakota. Borglum looked at the needles and knew with the erosion and the thinness of the needles they would not support a sculpture. Borglum found Mount Rushmore and said that its location and it facing southeast, for full exposure of the sun, would make a great place for a sculpture. It was also his idea to honor U.S. Presidents that represent the first 150 years of American History. Congress authorized the memorial in 1925 and Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt were to join Washington in the sculpture. On Oct 4, 1927 the sculpture was started. Borglum was 57 years old and he and 400 workers worked on the sculptures. Washington was completed and dedicated on July 4, 1934 followed by Jefferson in 1936, Lincoln in 1937 and Roosevelt in 1939. Borglum died in 1941 leaving his son to finish the sculptures. On Oct. 31, 1941, due to funding, the project was deemed complete by Congress. Mount Rushmore is South Dakota's number one tourist attraction.
I was so excited to go to Mount Rushmore. It has been a place I had always wanted to visit since I was a little girl. It was so inspiring looking up at these four great men carved in granite. It is an amazing sight and one that I will never forget. Pictures cannot do it justice. We had lunch at Mount Rushmore and we both had Buffalo Stew and it was delicious. While we ate lunch on the terrace we had Mount Rushmore as our view. After lunch we walked the Presidential trail that takes you to the base of sculptures. There at the bottom of the rock rubble we stood and gazed up at the sculptures. It was great. We noticed that some of the bigger rocks that were around the area we were standing had the drill markings where they had been drilled for explosives. One side note, on our hike to the base of Mount Rushmore we met a couple from Jacksonville. Tim had his Jacksonville Jaguar shirt and hat on and a gentleman asked if we were from Jacksonville. We chatted with Carol and Bruce for a little bit, exchanged information and said we would keep in touch during our travels. It was nice to meet some hometown folks and fellow RVers. Before we went to Mount Rushmore we visited other areas around Mount Rushmore along with the Crazy Horse Memorial. Tomorrow I will share those experiences. We thoroughly enjoyed our day at Mount Rushmore and I would highly recommend it at a must see attraction. WOW!
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