Is This Mount Rushmore? – Road Trip Day 5 Ep.11

Lex sez:

It was supposed to be one of the highlights of our road trip. Neek, Sar and I were driving up to see the iconic sculptural monument known as Mount Rushmore National Memorial. It was rainy as we drove up Highway 244 in South Dakota on our way there, but we were hopeful the sky might clear enough to get a view of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and (Theodore) Roosevelt carved in granite.

The idea to carve these icons of American history into Mount Rushmore, which was named after Charles Rushmore, a New York lawyer who had mining claims in that area in the 1880s, began in 1923 when historian Doane Robinson thought it would be a great way to promote tourism in South Dakota. In 1924, Robinson convinced sculptor Gutzon Borglum to go to the Black Hills to see if the carving was possible. He chose Mount Rushmore as its granite was a wide enough canvas and faced southeast for maximum sun exposure.

On March 3, 1925, Congress authorized the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission. Carving began on October 4, 1927.

Gutzon Borglum was a brilliant sculptor, but led a complicated life filled with contradictions. He was the son of polygamous Mormons born in 1867. While studying in Paris at Académie Julian, he met with and became influenced by the impressionistic light-catching surfaces of Auguste Rodin’s sculpting. He was an active member of the Freemasons, but paradoxically was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan. From 1923 to 1925, Borglum was carving a Confederate monument on Stone Mountain in Georgia. Though none of his sculpting remains, being destroyed after falling out with the organization that hired him, Borglum developed the techniques that were necessary to sculpt on the gigantic scale that Mount Rushmore required.

It was Borglum who chose the four Presidents for their role in preserving the Republic and expanding its territory. The carving process included lots of dynamite (a total of 450,000 short tons of rock were blasted away) then workers drilled holes close together to allow small pieces to be removed by hand in a process called honeycombing.

George Washington’s face was the first completed and dedicated on July 4, 1934. Jefferson’s was completed in 1936 and Lincoln in 1937. Theodore Roosevelt’s face was dedicated in 1939. Before the final sculpting was completed, Borglum died on March 6, 1941 at age 60. His son, Lincoln Borglum, oversaw the finishing touches up to October 31, 1941 when the memorial was finished.

There was quite a bit of this history, as well as a lot of other fascinating facts, featured at the Mount Rushmore Visitor Center. Neek, Sar and I were disappointed to arrive with rain and clouds blocking the view of Mount Rushmore, but there were plenty of entertaining and informative exhibits in the Visitor Center to see. They even had a miniature model of Mount Rushmore which I eagerly filmed since I wasn’t able to capture the actual one! My favorite exhibit was where you get to choose which area of Mount Rushmore to dynamite, and then watch the footage. It’s really amazing with all the dynamite they used that not one person was killed during construction!

I was still hopeful that perhaps the sky would clear while we were there. We decided to spend some time watching a 20 minute documentary they were presenting at the Visitor Center. It’s well worth watching – fantastic black and white footage of the sculpting in progress transforming Mount Rushmore into the monument it is today – and was inspiring and patriotic. We walked out feeling good and looking forward to seeing on the terrace what we had just seen on film.

But it was not to be! We tried one last time walking out to the railing with our umbrellas covering us, but not only had the rain not let up, it seemed like the storm might be getting worse. Sadly, we drove away from Mount Rushmore but at least by walking through the Visitor Center we really got to understand the history and the level of dedication it took to make this dream a reality.