Visiting Mount Rushmore
Deep in the Black Hills of South Dakota, you will find a monument that defines the American landscape, Mount Rushmore. The mountain face, featuring 60-foot-tall carvings of four presidents, is a fixture of modern culture.
History
Geologically, the mountain itself is a granite batholith, a common formation throughout the Black Hills.
Long before the arrival of settlers, this site held significance as a place of pilgrimage for the Lakota Indians. Known to them as the Six Grandfathers or Cougar Mountain, the site was later referred to as Sugarloaf Mountain or the Keystone cliffs. A New York attorney named Charles Rushmore noted the peak during an expedition in 1885, and the name became official in 1930.
The concept for Mount Rushmore emerged in 1923, proposed by historian Doane Robinson as a way to boost local tourism. He brought in sculptor Gutzon Borglum to assess the site, but the artist rejected the original mountain and personally selected the current location instead.
With the support of President Calvin Coolidge, the project officially began in 1925.
Between October 4, 1927, and October 31, 1941, the sculptor and a crew of 400 workers carved the 60-foot faces of four presidents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt were immortalized on the mountainside.
The original plan called for full-body sculptures, but the death of the artist and a shortage of funding halted the work before those versions could be completed.
Mount Rushmore
During the 1990s, extensive renovations were carried out to improve the visitor experience, including the addition of museums, a visitor center, and marked hiking trails. The site now welcomes more than 2,000,000 visitors annually.
It remains a landmark of impressive scale.
Some visits aren't exactly original, but they feel kind of mandatory. Mount Rushmore is one of those. While driving across the USA, after Yellowstone, we stopped by to see if they are as impressive in person as they are in the movies.
Honestly, it makes for some pretty cool scenery. In the middle of all that nature, these big heads sticking out of the mountain are both strange and fascinating.
I probably wouldn't go back, but I'm glad I saw it. I think it's one of those things you have to do once, kind of like the Statue of Liberty or the Grand Canyon.