Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota

We started our day at the Executive Order Grill for the “All you can eat” .99 cent pancakes!

Then it was on to the Borglum Museum in Keystone, SD for some background on what we were about to experience. They also have the Borglum Story at Mt. Rushmore. We’d recommend seeing both of them.

Finally, Mt Rushmore! This is another place where pictures can’t capture the true magnitude of the sculptures! 450,000 tons of rock were removed from Mt. Rushmore to create the faces. 90% was removed with dynamite, the remaining rock was removed by drilling and jack hammering. The finishing was done with small jack hammers and facing bits.

Here is the Borglum studio. This sculpture is what Borglum wanted Mt. Rushmore to look like when it was completed. The scale was 1ft to 12ft on the sculpture, he would transfer the measurements to the crews on the mountain. Borglum’s funding started to run dry because of World War II. His death in 1941 left his son Lincoln to conclude the project with the few remaining funds.

One thing we didn’t know about Borglum was that he had been commissioned to create a sculpture on Stone Mtn. in Georgia before Mt. Rushmore. The project became embroiled in controversy and he was fired before he could even begin work on the mountain itself. Borglum was so angry he destroyed all his models and fled before the Sheriff came!