photo #386887

Mount RushmoreMount Rushmore is located in the Black Hills in Keystone South Dakota. This project received congressional approval in 1925, under Calvin Coolidge's administration. A sculptor by the name of Guzton Borgulm supervised this project for 14 years from its start in 1927, until his death in 1941. His son, Lincoln finished the project. The four presidents - Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln - are carved into granite, and was originally intended to include full shoulders and chest. However, due to lack of funding the four faces are the final result. Just to get an idea of the size of these carvings, each face is 60 ft tall, noses 20 ft tall, mouths 18 ft wide, eyes 11 ft wide. The construction crew used a combination of dynamite and drilling to remove the bits of stone to form the faces. In total, approximately 450,000 tons of granite was removed to create this national monument, for a total cost of approz $989,992.32. In 2020 dollars, this equates to $17,528,925.24.