Mount Rushmore was initially the idea of South Dakota state historian, Doane Robinson. In order to boost the state's income from tourism, Robinson wanted to carve giant statues in the Black Hills of local figures like Chief Red Cloud, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Lewis and Clark. He was inspired by reports that a sculptor named Gutzon Borglum was carving a Confederate memorial on Stone Mountain in Georgia. He recruited Borglum to carve Mt Rushmore, but 60 year old Borglum said that his life's work would not be about immortalizing local heroes. He insisted that the scope of the project demanded a national and timeless subject and he proposed that Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt should be the subjects. He felt that those four had shaped the nation in unique ways. Washington exemplified the birth of the nation. Jefferson stood for expansion because of the Louisianna purchase, Roosevelt stood for development because of the Panama Canal, Conservation, and trust busting, and Lincoln stood for preservation because he had saved the nation during the Civil War. I can think of many better reasons than the Louisianna Purchase to include Jefferson, who is my personal hero, but I digress.
The project took 14 years to complete, used 400 workers, and cost $989,992. Each face is 60 feet tall, each eye is 11 feet wide, and each nose is 20 feet long, except Washington's which is 21 feet long. The tools used to carve the project included drills, chisels, jackhammers, and dynamite. The workers would hike up the 700 stairs to the carving each day, climb into sling chairs, and be lowered down the mountain to the place where they were working each day. Incredibly, there were no fatalities and only a few minor injuries over the life of the project.
In March 1941, Borglum died of complications from surgery at the age of 74. With America's inolvement in World War II looming, the decision was made to abandon the project. The work on the faces was mostly finished, and after Borglum's son Lincoln Borglum put some finishing touches on the sculpture, it was declared complete. You can see the parts that weren't finished by looking at the model that was being used for the carving.
When we were on our way from Cody to the Black Hills, Rick had remembered that a friend of his from the Police Department in Baltimore now lived "somewhere in South Dakota" but he couldn't remember where. Through the magic of Google and Facebook I was able to find his friend, and we made plans to have dinner with Ted and his wife, Cheryl. We had so much fun that we met them again the next night for another dinner, and they accompanied us to the nightly lighting of the monument at Mt Rushmore. Though, truthfully, we were disappointed in the program, we had fun with our friends.
Rick and I also spent a few hours at the ongoing Crazy Horse Memorial carving. The Black Hills were considered sacred land by several Indian tribes. After watching the heads of 4 white men being carved into their sacred mountain for 14 years, Chief Henry Standing Bear commissioned one of the carvers from Mt Rushmore to sculpt a carving of Crazy Horse that was bigger and more elaborate, to show that Indians have heroes too. The project was begun in 1948, and when finished, will show Crazy Horse atop his horse. The third generation of Ziolkowski's are now working on the memorial.
The visitors center also houses several gift shops with high quality Indian art work. Many other Indian artifacts are on display in the visitor's center. It's interesting to note that the family has refused monetary help from both the state and federal governments.
This a model of what it's supposed to look like when it's finished.
We finished our visit to the Black Hills with a visit to the interesting Wind Cave National Park. It was a 90 degree day, so the 54 degree temperatures inside the cave were quite welcome!
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