My Diaries

“Over the decades, Mount Rushmore has grown in fame as a symbol of America – a symbol of freedom and democracy and symbol of hope for people from all cultures and backgrounds” (Mount Rushmore Visitor’s Guide n°3).

Well, I don’t know about America being hope for the rest of the world, but for sure these four heads carved in the rock are imposing! We followed a guide who explained the making of the monument and gave us a bit of information about each of the Presidents (from left to right: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln) and their main contributions to the USA, a needed piece of history as far as I am concerned! Here is my understanding of it.
The project of Mount Rushmore was the idea of a local State Historian, who apparently was concerned about the low tourist frequentation in South Dakota — and rightfully! Ask any American what there is in South Dakota and you’ll get an answer like “…Cows?”… So the guy had the awfully banal idea to sculpt figures in the Black Hills (which is something they have in more than cows in South Dakota, a chain of hills). It is well known how anything is possible in the US, so the project actually pleased a sculptor called Gutzon Borglum, who had already started a similar work in Georgia but somehow got into disagreement with the authorities and flew away from the state after having wrecked all his work… Anyways, this guy Borglum reappears in South Dakota and finds funding for this new project in the Black Hills.

Since he knew what ambition meant, he chose to represent on the mountain four presidents whose contribution to the country had been of great importance. He chose George Washington to represent the birth of the country (Washington was the first president of the USA for those of you who didn’t learn their lesson). Thomas Jefferson symbolized expansion since he was largely responsible for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 from Napoleon. Borglum chose Lincoln to embody the preservation of the Union of States in confronting the challenges of the civil war. And Theodore Roosevelt represented the developement of the country with the construction of the Panama Canal (I copied this last part from the Visitor’s Guide. My english writing is not that litterate .

The total cost of the sculpture drew near one million dollars. Borglum and his team of 400 workers worked in the rock during 14 years, from 1927 to 1941. From below, the white faces look like they are sculpted in the most tender limestone, and like carving must have been easy. Well actually, this granit is so hard that it erodes only 1 inch every 10000 years! It seems that Borglum knew that he was working for posterity when he chose the exact location of the monument! As a result, 90% of the carving had to be done using dynamite. The rest was delicately finished with such light tools as chisels and jackhammers…

The guide told us plenty of other things, but I don’t feel like rewriting everything here. You’ll have to go and check yourselves.

And guess what, after excavating over 450000 tons of rock debris (now forming the talus slope), Mount Rushmore now does bring tourism into South Dakota! The statistics count more than 3 million people every year going all the way to South Dakota precisely to see Borglum’s work. I guess the goal is reached!