Mount Rushmore is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the United States. It attracts millions of visitors every year to the Black Hills of South Dakota. However, the history of its construction is filled with dangerous dynamite, political controversies, and ambitious plans that never happened. Consequently, the granite faces hide many stories that most tourists never hear. Explore these fascinating details about the Shrine of Democracy.
Mount Rushmore
A secret room exists behind Abraham Lincoln’s head. The sculptor started carving a Hall of Records into the canyon wall to hold important American documents. Although workers never finished the grand museum, it now contains a titanium vault with porcelain panels telling the country’s history.
Workers originally carved Thomas Jefferson on the opposite side. They spent two years sculpting him to the left of George Washington. Unfortunately, the rock proved too unstable, so they blasted his face off with dynamite and started over on the right side.
The sculptor wanted to carve the presidents down to their waists. Gutzon Borglum originally planned for the figures to be much larger and more detailed. However, a lack of funding and the onset of World War II forced the project to stop at just the heads.
Crews carved ninety percent of the mountain using dynamite. Workers became experts at using explosives to remove massive amounts of granite within inches of the final design. They only used drills and chisels for the final detailed work on Mount Rushmore.
Remarkably, no workers died during the construction. Despite using dangerous explosives and hanging from ropes hundreds of feet in the air, the safety record remained perfect. This stood as an incredible achievement for such a hazardous construction project in the 1930s.
Locals named the mountain after a New York lawyer. Charles E. Rushmore visited the area on a business trip in 1885 and asked a guide for the name of the peak. The guide jokingly replied that Mount Rushmore now bore his name, and it eventually stuck.
The pupils of the eyes are actually just shadows. To make the eyes look realistic and alive, the sculptor carved a deep hole with a granite cube left in the center. The sun hits the cube and creates a twinkle that looks like a real eye from a distance.
The workers formed their own baseball team. The Rushmore Memorial amateur baseball team played against other local towns during their downtime. Pitcher Hoppie Anderson played so well that he led the team to the state semi-finals.
Lawmakers almost added Susan B. Anthony to the mountain. They introduced a bill in Congress to add the famous suffragette to the group of figures. However, Congress decided that money should only go toward finishing the existing heads.
The original plan did not include presidents at all. Doane Robinson, who conceived the monument, wanted to feature Western heroes like Buffalo Bill Cody and Lewis and Clark. The sculptor changed the plan because he wanted the monument to have broader national appeal.
The Lakota Sioux considers the land sacred. The government promised the Black Hills, or Paha Sapa, to them in a treaty that they later broke. Consequently, many Native Americans view Mount Rushmore as a painful symbol of lost land and broken promises.
George Washington’s nose stretches 21 feet long. The sheer scale of the faces is difficult to comprehend from the ground. For perspective, the mouths span about 18 feet wide, which creates enough space for a person to stand inside comfortably.
Alfred Hitchcock filmed a famous chase scene there. The movie North by Northwest features a thrilling climax where characters scramble down the presidential faces. However, he actually filmed the scene on a replica set because the government prohibited filming on the real mountain.
Borglum scrapped a massive inscription from the final design. He wanted to carve a large Entablature in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase listing major events in US history. Eventually, he abandoned the idea because the text appeared too small to read from a distance.
Finally, the project cost less than one million dollars. Specifically, the government paid 989,992 dollars and 32 cents for the fourteen-year construction. Today, it would cost tens of millions of dollars to replicate Mount Rushmore due to inflation.
