HISTORY4 - Mount Rushmore Rocks!

Pat and I are signed up for a tour in September that includes Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and Mount Rushmore National Memorial.  I’ve never been to Mount Rushmore before, so ahead of the trip, I wanted to know more about Mount Rushmore’s history - hence this article as a “learning tool.”  I will write about the tour - complete with our best photos - after the trip.

Mount Rushmore is a U.S. National Memorial located in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  It features spectacular 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four prominent U.S presidents:  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.  Construction began in 1927 and lasted until 1941.  Sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed and oversaw the project.

Before and after views of the Mount Rushmore carvings.

The Idea

In 1923 South Dakota State Historian Doane Robinson suggested carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of South Dakota for the purpose of promoting tourism.  Robinson wanted the sculpture to feature heroes of the American West, like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud, and Buffalo Bill Cody. His initial idea was to sculpt the “Needles,” a formation of granite pillars, near Custer South Dakota.

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum

In 1924 Doane Robinson contacted sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who was then managing the carving of a Confederate Memorial on Stone Mountain in Georgia.  Robinson was looking for the man to fulfill his dream in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The son of Danish immigrants, Gutzon Borglum was born in 1867 in what was then the Idaho Territory.  By 1901 he was sculpting portraits and group figures; his reputation increased rapidly.  He continued sculpting memorials and public works until 1923 when he began work on the Confederate Memorial on Stone Mountain in Georgia - an immense high relief sculpture depicting Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis.  Borglum was increasingly at odds with local officials at Stone Mountain over management and financial issues, so when Doane Robinson approached him about the Black Hills job, Borglum was ready to listen.  In 1925 Borglum left Georgia permanently, relinquishing the Confederate Memorial to a successor, but having developed the necessary techniques for carving huge sculptures that made Mount Rushmore possible.

Gutzon Borglum had a fascination with gigantic scale and themes of heroic nationalism that suited his extroverted personality.  He was domineering, a perfectionist, and had an authoritarian manner that brought tensions to large projects.

Robinson decided that Borglum was the sculptor for the job and discussions began with local officials to confirm the appropriate site in the Black Hills, the theme of the sculpture, and the persons to be honored.  Borglum immediately imposed his strong opinions.  He rejected the “needles” site because of the poor quality of the granite and strong opposition from Native American groups.  They settled instead on a site a few miles northeast of the Needles, near Keystone, South Dakota, atop 5,725-foot Mount Rushmore, named in 1885 after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer.  Mount Rushmore had the advantage of stronger granite and faced southeast for maximum sun exposure on the completed sculpture.

The Black Hills area of South Dakota.

Borglum strongly pushed the idea that the sculpture should have broader historic appeal, commemorating America’s founders and builders, and convinced the South Dakota decision makers that they should honor four U.S. presidents for what they represent to the country:  Washington for the birth of the nation, Jefferson for growth, Roosevelt for development, and Lincoln for preservation of the union.

Initial Approval and Funding

South Dakota Senator Peter Norbeck and Congressman William Williamson were instrumental in getting legislation passed to allow the carving of the memorial on “federal land.”  The U.S. Congress and the South Dakota Legislature passed the necessary bills in March 1925.  On October 1, 1925 Borglum organized an informal dedication of Mount Rushmore as a national memorial.

The Mount Rushmore site was sacred Indian land.  An 1868 treaty with the U.S. government guaranteed that the Lakota tribe could keep the Black Hills forever.  But once gold was found and confirmed in 1874 (by Lt. Col. George Custer), the U.S. government and prospectors grabbed the land back and drove the Lakota away.

Money for the project was harder to find.  Borglum lobbied heavily in Washington DC for the Mount Rushmore carving and by early 1927 achieved success.  On August 10, 1927 President Calvin Coolidge attended the formal dedication ceremony for the Mount Rushmore Memorial and promised federal funding for the project.  Coolidge soon signed a bill authorizing government funds to get started and creating a 12-member Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission.  Gutzon Borglum now had approval, funding, and a contract to begin the carving of Mount Rushmore. 

President Calvin Coolidge delivers a speech on August 10, 1927 at the formal Mount Rushmore Memorial dedication ceremony.

Construction

The carving of Mount Rushmore began in October 1927 and proceeded intermittently until October 31, 1941, interrupted periodically by scope, funding, and weather issues.  The presidential faces were completed one at a time, left to right.  Over the 14-year effort, about 400 people worked on the project - usually around 30 per year. The workforce included former local miners as drillers and carvers, plus support people like errand boys, blacksmiths, carpenters, and housekeepers.  Around 450,000 tons of rock was removed from the face of the mountain.  Washington was completed and dedicated in 1934, Jefferson in 1936, with President Franklin Roosevelt attending the dedication that year, and Lincoln in 1937.  The face of Theodore Roosevelt was finally completed in 1939.  Gutzon Borglum died in March 1941 from complications during surgery; work continued under the direction of his son, Lincoln Borglum, until final drilling in October 1941.  No deaths occurred during the 14 years of the project.  The Mount Rushmore carving project came to an end when funding ceased due to World War II requirements.  According to the National Park Service, the entire project cost just under a million dollars, a real bargain by todays’ standards, 84% paid by the federal government. 

Borglum started with a 1/12^th scale model (one inch on the model translated to one foot on the mountain) and invented an ingenious method to transfer his design from the model to the face of the mountain. 

A Black Hills, Badlands & Mount Rushmore pamphlet describes the “pointing” process:

“To transfer measurements from the model to the mountain, workers determined where the top of the [mountain] head would be, than found the corresponding point on the model.  A protractor was mounted horizontally on top of the model’s head.  A similar, albeit 12-times larger apparatus was placed on the mountain.  By [carefully measuring angles and distances to various points on the model and] substituting feet for inches, workers quickly determined the amount of rock to remove.”

Gutzon Borglum's final model of the Mount Rushmore Memorial.  Note the man at right center of the 1/12th-scale model.

Rex Allen Smith, in his book, The Carving of Mount Rushmore, describes how the carving was accomplished.  The carvers were lowered down the 500-foot face of the mountain in bosun chairs held by 3/8-inch thick steel cables.

“… the rough shaping was done by the drillers [using dynamite], who worked down to within about six inches of the finished surface of the heads, and in the process they removed granite by the foot and by the ton.  [About 90% of the granite was removed with dynamite.]  Then the carvers took over.  By ‘honeycombing’ - drilling grids of very shallow and closely spaced holes and breaking out the material between - they worked down to very near the finished ‘skin,’ and in doing so they removed stone by the inch and the pound.

Then came the finishing.  This was done by carvers using “bumpers” - light, handheld pneumatic hammers … against the granite and removed it by the fraction of an inch and by the ounce. … Then, closely supervised by Gutzon or Lincoln, they shaped on the stone faces those subtle nuances … that give living faces age and character and personality.”

Italian immigrant Luigi Del Blanco, who had worked for Gutzon Borglum on Stone Mountain, was hired as Chief Carver because of his incredible ability to show emotion and personality in stone.  Between 1933 and 1940, he carved the refinement of expressions on the four faces.

Work proceeds on the Washington and Jefferson sculptures.

Finishing work around the nose of the Lincoln figure.

Gutzon Borglum inspects the carving on Mount Rushmore.

A couple of unplanned oddities occurred during construction.  Thomas Jefferson was originally supposed to be on the right side of George Washington.  They started sculpting Jefferson in that position but after almost two years of work, ran into complications with the granite, had to dynamite their first attempt off the mountain, and “squish” him in on Washington’s left side.  Also, in 1937 a bill was introduced to Congress that pushed for Susan B. Anthony, of women’s suffrage fame, to be added to the sculpture as a fifth personage.  That idea was quashed quickly, with the funding restricted to the four presidents.

Limited funding had already caused changes to the original plan.  The presidents were supposed to be carved from the waist up, but insufficient funding reduced the scope of the effort.  Beyond the sculpture of the presidents, Gutzon Borglum had grander plans for the design of the monument.  He wanted to add a map of the Louisiana Purchase on the face of the mountain and, within the map, carve some of the nation’s highest accomplishments and significant events.  Insufficient funds curtailed this idea too.

Funding and management issues challenged the construction of the Mount Rushmore Memorial over the entire period of construction.  John Boland, former mayor of Rapid City South Dakota, and the first president of the executive committee of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission, was responsible for the project’s finances in the early years of construction.  Boland and Borglum were at odds constantly over everything from schedules, to timely release of funds, paying bills, and even publicity, but Boland’s efforts ensured adequate funding, even during the depths of the Great Depression.  During the 1930s Senator Norbeck worked tirelessly to secure continued funding through emergency relief programs that were part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal.

In 1933 an executive order by President Roosevelt placed Mount Rushmore under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service (NPS).  Gutzon Borglum, always uneasy with outside control over his projects, resented being under “the watchful eye” of the government.

In 1938 the U.S. government authorized Gutzon Borglum’s “special addition.”  Between 1938 and 1939, a 70-foot tunnel was dug in a canyon behind the faces carved on the Mount Rushmore’s thin mountain ridge.  The tunnel was to be the entrance to “The Hall of Records at Mount Rushmore,” intended to hold important U.S. documents such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.  These plans seemed to die with Gutzon in 1941 and the onset of World War II, but on August 8, 1998 the tunnel was commemorated into a small Hall of Records, containing the story of Mount Rushmore’s creation, a brief history of the United States, and engravings of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.  Today, the entrance to the hall is sealed behind a 1,200-pound granite slab, for far-future generations to discover. 

At center right, behind the head of Lincoln, you can see the entrance to the Hall of Records tunnel.

The completed Mount Rushmore Memorial.

Preservation

The ongoing conservation of the Mount Rushmore Memorial site is overseen by the U.S National Park Service (NPS).  In 1989 the NPS and the Mount Rushmore Society began studies to understand the structural integrity of the monument and where the weak points might arise over the years.  The major blocks of granite and fractures that make up the mountain were identified and mapped in three dimensions.  In 1998 electronic monitoring devices (along with 8,000 feet of camouflaged copper wire) were installed to track movement of the rock structure to an accuracy of three millimeters (one ninth of an inch).  Since 2009, movements at the site have been digitally recorded using a laser scanning methodology.  The copper wire was replaced with fiber optic cable.

The 1989 study also helped to test the original sealant for cracks, applied by Gutzon Borglum.  The sealant devised by Borglum, a mixture of linseed oil, white lead, and granite dust, was found to have dried out quickly and became ineffective at keeping water out of the cracks.

NPS staff began removing the old sealant and replacing it with a modern silicone sealant, that is better able to withstand the extreme temperature and moisture variations that occur on Mount Rushmore.  Similar to what Borglum had done, the silicone is camouflaged after it is applied by sprinkling granite dust on its surface.

According to geologists, the granite, from which the memorial is carved, erodes only one inch every 10,000 years, so the monument will be around a long, long time. 

National Memorial

On October 15, 1966 Mount Rushmore was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

In 1991 President George H. W. Bush attended the 50^th anniversary of completing the Mount Rushmore Memorial.

Visitor facilities have been added over the years, including a visitor center, the Lincoln Borglum Museum, and a Presidential Trail. You can also visit the Sculptor’s Studio, where Gutzon Borglum worked on his scale models.

Mount Rushmore has become an iconic symbol of the U.S. and today is South Dakota’s top tourist attraction, with about 2.5 million visitors annually.