Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore
By Jennifer Rosenberg
Updated January 05, 2016.
From 1927 to 1941, sculptor Gutzon Borglum and nearly 400 workers diligently carved the faces of four U.S. presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt) into the southeastern, granite side of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Completed on October 31, 1941, Mount Rushmore took 14 years to create, removed 450,000 tons of granite, and cost $989,992.32.
The Idea
In 1924, the state of South Dakota was only 35 years old and still relatively unknown. To enliven interest in South Dakota and bring in tourists, state historian Doane Robinson proposed creating sculptures of western heroes out of the Black Hills rock formations known as the Needles.
Robinson envisioned this outcropping of pillar-like rocks to be shaped into figures such as Sioux chief Red Cloud , Lewis and Clark , John C. Fremont , Sacagawea , and Buffalo Bill .
While still in just the idea stage, Robinson, who is now known as the "Father of Mount Rushmore," wrote a letter on August 20, 1924 to sculptor Gutzon Borglum about the project.
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The Sculptor
Gutzon Borglum was a talented, energetic, strong-willed man. He began his artistic life as a painter, gaining accolades and patrons after painting a portrait of the intriguing and influential explorer and Civil War general, John C. Fremont.
Borglum then went to Paris to study, where he met renown sculptor Auguste Rodin . It was while in Paris that Borglum switched from painting to sculpture.
Back again in the United States, Borglum made an impressive, large bust of President Abraham Lincoln that gained him national fame. The bust caught the eye of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who then asked Borglum to carve the image of Confederate General Robert E. Lee into the side of Stone Mountain in Georgia.
Borglum began work on the Stone Mountain project but after the strongly opinionated Borglum and the rest of the committee began to have serious disagreements about who was in charge, Borglum was asked to leave the project on February 5, 1925.
Unwilling to allow another artist to use his design, Borglum destroyed the models he had designed of the Stone Mountain project. This absolutely infuriated the members of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, who then sent a posse after Borglum, chasing Borglum to the state line.1 Not surprisingly, Borglum was never asked to come back. (The carving was later finished by other artists, but only after all of Borglum's work had been removed.)
Leaving the Stone Mountain project left 58-year-old Borglum free to pursue Mount Rushmore.
Finding the Mountain
Delving into the Mount Rushmore project, Borglum quickly changed Robinson's idea from western figures to U.S. presidents, specifically George Washington and Abraham Lincoln , so that the project would have a wider, national appeal. Borglum made a rough sketch, showing the two men standing next to each other.
In August 1925, Borglum made a trip to South Dakota with his son, Lincoln, to search for the right mountain. Having determined that the Needles were unsuitable for carving, Borglum was searching for something much larger.
Having been guided through most of the Harney range on horseback, Borglum was taken to Mount Rushmore last. This was the mountain for his monumental project. 
When Borglum saw the mountain for the first time in 1925, Mount Rushmore stood 6,000 feet above sea level, with a flat-topped, granite peak 1,000-feet long and 400-feet high. Importantly, Mount Rushmore had a southeastern face that would be naturally lit by the sun for most of the day.
The only problem with Mount Rushmore was that it was buried deep in the wilderness, a mile-and-a-half from the nearest road.2 It would take a lot of money and effort just to make the site accessible to both workers and visitors.
What Images to Carve?
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were easy choices for the monument. Borglum, who thought and dreamed big, decided to add two more figures. Wanting the completed Mount Rushmore project to be a "Shrine of Democracy," Borglum added Thomas Jefferson . The fourth figure, however, was more controversial.
While Borglum wanted to add Teddy Roosevelt because he had built the Panama Canal and advocated for the conservation of America's natural lands, others advocated for Woodrow Wilson , the president that had led the United States through World War I and who had died the year before. 
In the end, Borglum did as he wanted and made the fourth image Teddy Roosevelt.
Getting Started
Getting funding for the Mount Rushmore project was more difficult than first expected. Borglum, who had been confident that private investors would fund the project, was surprised to find that nearly none would.
After two years of struggling to gather enough money to get the project started, the Mount Rushmore project was almost scrapped before it had begun. But then in 1927, Borglum got lucky.
In 1927, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge decided to vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Using this to his advantage, Borglum invited Coolidge to participate in a dedication ceremony for Mount Rushmore. Coolidge agreed.
In preparation for the big event, Borglum used the $54,000 they had managed to acquire from private donors to get preparations underway.3
At the base of the mountain, the workmen built a studio for Borglum, quarters for the crew, a blacksmith's workshop, and a cookhouse. They also dug a well to provide water.
Three miles away, the workmen constructed a building in Keystone to house the 200-horsepower, diesel engine that would supply the electricity needed to power the air compressors (these powered the drills).4
Equipment was gathered, including jackhammers, air-compressed drills, chisels, bosun's chairs, and steel wires.
On August 10, 1927, the dedication ceremony took place. Coolidge, wearing cowboy boots and a suit for the occasion, gave a short speech to the 1,700 visitors had come to witness the ceremony at Mount Rushmore. Coolidge stated:
Here in the heart of the continent, on the side of a mountain which probably no white man had ever beheld in the day of Washington, in territory which was acquired by the action of Jefferson, which remained an unbroken wilderness beyond the days of Lincoln, which was especially beloved by Roosevelt, the people of the future will see history and art combined to portray the spirit of patriotism.5
With Coolidge's support, Mount Rushmore began receiving federal funding. Although slow and intermittent, the promise of federal funding was enough to get started.
Carving the Mountain
Carving of Mount Rushmore began on October 4, 1927. Borglum had created a plaster model of the sculpture at a scale of 1:12, meaning one inch of the model correlated to twelve inches (one foot) of the mountain. The model, which had to be changed nine times during the 14-year project, showed the four presidents from the waist up.6
Work started first on George Washington. Workers would climb 760 steps to reach the top of the mountain (about 40 stories high) and then be lowered down the face of the mountain in a seemingly precarious  bosun's chair , held only by a 3/8-inch steel cable, to get to work.
To move from place to place, the workers signaled to a "callboy," who could call up to the men working the winches at the top of the mountain in order to adjust or move the men to a new location.
A small cable car, working like a dumbwaiter, was also built to travel up and down the mountain to carry supplies. For most of the construction, this cableway was not intended for human transport.
Approximately 90% of the carving was done by carefully-placed dynamite, done by men known as "powder monkeys." When most of the granite was removed, work slowed as they began the "honeycomb" process of removing granite, which entailed boring holes just inches apart from each other and then chiseling in-between. To smooth out the surface, workers used a process called "bumping," which used a dallet hand facer to carefully ground the surface to look as smooth as skin.
The Problem With Jefferson
When Washington was nearly finished, the workers began carving Thomas Jefferson in June 1931 on the left side of Washington. However, the granite there proved too difficult to carve because of numerous veins of quartz.
Having to make a very difficult decision, Borglum ordered the work on Jefferson to not only halt, but be blasted off in 1934. The workers then moved to the right of Washington to begin again on Jefferson.
Lincoln's head was started in 1936 and then Roosevelt came next. Veins of quartz also plagued the work on Teddy Roosevelt's face. Borglum had to cut deep into the rock to find a spot of solid granite to shape for Roosevelt.
How Big Are the Faces on Mount Rushmore?
Each of the four presidential faces are huge. At 60-feet tall, each of the heads are 83 times as large as a regular human head. At that size, a full-body statue would be taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza and almost reach the top of the Washington Monument in D.C.
The nose of each statue alone is 20-feet long and each eye measures 11-feet wide. Teddy Roosevelt's mustache ranges 20-feet across and Abraham Lincoln's mole is 16-inches wide.
Calling It Done
Funding for the Mount Rushmore project was difficult to find even when it was started in 1925. When the Great Depression hit after the 1929 Stock Market Crash , funding became even scarcer and more sporadic.
Each time the project ran out of money, all work had to stop. This meant that only 6 1/2 years of the 14 years it took to create Mount Rushmore were spent carving.7 In 1941, even the sporadic funding was to stop.
In February 1941, sculptor Gutzon Borglum went in for surgery. Unfortunately, just three weeks later, March 6, 1941, 73-year-old Borglum died. Borglum's son, Lincoln, who had been involved with the Mount Rushmore project from its inception, took over for his father and finished the project.
Although the torsos of the four presidents had barely begun, Congress decided to consider the Mount Rushmore project complete. With the United States' entrance into World War II looming, Congress cut funding for Mount Rushmore.
Carving ended on October 31, 1941, just 37 days before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entered WWII.
More Heads?
Over the decades, there have been a number of recommendations to add more heads to Mount Rushmore, including the likeness of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan .8
Despite the suggestions, Congress has not yet given any funding for additional carving to be done at Mount Rushmore since work stopped in 1941.
Notes
1. Judith Janda Presnall, Mount Rushmore (San Diego: Lucent Books, 2000) 22.
2. Presnall, Mount Rushmore 25.
3. Presnall, Mount Rushmore 35.
4. Presnall, Mount Rushmore 36.
5. President Calvin Coolidge, "Speech Delivered on August 10, 1927," National Park Service
http://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/historyculture/upload/August%2010%201927%20Coolidge%20Speech.pdf (accessed November 29, 2015)
6. Presnall, Mount Rushmore 43.
7. Lynn Curlee, Rushmore (New York: Scholastic Press, 1999) 20.
8. Curlee, Rushmore 44.