Mount Rushmore-Where Do You Start?

It was on this date in 1927 that construction began on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

The idea was great, the funding always an issue—and the weather and the elements both played their part in delaying the construction of this highly ambitious project. It would be another 12 years or so before the work was done.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Each with a head 60 feet high, carved out of granite on the face of a mountain in what are now known as the Black Hills of South Dakota.

So, if you were the project manager, what would be the first thing YOU’D do?

Great wonders like this astound me, not because somebody THOUGHT of it, but that it was actually accomplished. To sculpt anything would be way beyond the average artist’s scope, but at least if you mess up, there’s always another block of marble or granite to start with.

Not so with Mount Rushmore.

When the primary means of shaping the mountain is dynamite, you’ve got to get it right the first time. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum did just that—as did his son Lincoln (coincidence? I think not), who finished the job.

One misplaced stick of TNT and George Washington looks like Howdy Doody—and there’s no going back. Actually, they did mess up Jefferson, who was supposed to be on Washington’s right. After two years, the face was badly cracked, leaving no alternative but to blast him off altogether and start over, tucking his image to George’s left. The original design also was intended to show the entire torso, but funding dried up and carving was abandoned in 1941.

Here’s a short video of someone’s trip to Rushmore—shot in 1986. Pretty decent video for the year, with part of the tour’s narration to give background:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ow6d5cwMu4


Washington’s face was completed in 1934, Jefferson’s in 1936—with then-president Franklin Roosevelt in attendance for the dedication. Teddy Roosevelt was completed in 1939 with Lincoln.

Total cost was just under one million dollars—and although over 400 workers toiled to complete the project, not a single death was attributed to its construction. In a canyon behind the faces is a carved chamber containing 16 porcelain enamel panels, containing the text of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the biographies of the four Presidents as well as that of the sculptor Borglum.

This marvel of art and engineering has also been an icon of pop culture, with representations of additional faces—both serious and silly---morphed into the original design over the years. A serious attempt was undertaken to carve Ronald Reagan’s face alongside the existing Presidents. Not likely to happen, but you never know….

Perhaps needless to say, Mount Rushmore is South Dakota’s #1 tourist attraction. I have yet to visit it, but a trip to the Black Hills is on my bucket list. Since it’s a given that MY face won’t be carved into the mountain, at least I can join the millions who stare in awe at four of our country’s great historical leaders.


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