Mount Rushmore
The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into
the granite face of
Mount Rushmore (Lakota Sioux name: Six Grandfathers) near Keystone, South Dakota,
in the United States. Sculpted by Danish-AmericanGutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum, Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m)
sculptures of the heads of four United States
presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865).The entire
memorial covers 1,278.45 acres (5.17 km2) and is 5,725
feet (1,745 m) above sea level.
South Dakota historian Doane Robinson is credited
with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of
South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region. Robinson's initial idea
was to sculpt the Needles;
however, Gutzon Borglum rejected the Needles site because of the poor quality
of the granite and strong opposition from Native American groups. They settled
on the Mount Rushmore location, which also has the advantage of facing
southeast for maximum sun exposure. Robinson wanted it to feature westernheroes like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud,[5] and Buffalo Bill Cody,[6] but Borglum
decided the sculpture should have a more national focus and chose the four
presidents whose likenesses would be carved into the mountain. After securing
federal funding through the enthusiastic sponsorship of "Mount Rushmore's
great political patron", U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck,construction
on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents' faces were completed between
1934 and 1939. Upon Gutzon Borglum's death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over
construction. Although the initial concept called for each president to be
depicted from head to waist, lack of funding forced construction to end in late
October 1941.
Mount Rushmore has become an
iconic symbol of presidential greatness and has appeared in works of fiction,
and has been discussed or depicted in other popular works. It attracts over two
million people annually
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