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The four 60 foot high heads of Washington,
Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt carved into the granite face of Mt.
Rushmore by Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln are among the great icons
of the American landscape. Borglum began sculpting the mountain, named
after a New York lawyer investigating mining claims in the Black Hills,
in 1927. Weather delay and funding difficulties plagued the project
for the next 14 years, during which Gutzon Borglum died. Lincoln Borglum
completed the work of his late father in 1941.
The Mt Rushmore National Memoriam is one of the most frequently visited
sites in South Dakota, and remains one of the best free attractions
in the country. In 1998 several of the memorial’s facilities were
renovated, including the amphitheater, the museum/theater complex and
the visitors center. The evening lighting ceremony, starting at 9:00
pm in the amphitheater, illustrates the magnificent scale of the sculpture.
A special program by the National Parks
Service runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day. It includes a 10-minute
lecture on the memorial and is followed by a 20-minute film.
The Independence Day Celebration on July
3rd & 4th features a spectacular fire-works show over the heads
of the great stone presidents.
If a full-length sculpture of Washington
were completed to the scale of his likeness on Mt Rushmore it would
stand 465 ft high.
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