Gutzon Borglum’s team carved 18 m-high presidential heads (Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln) into South Dakota’s Black Hills between 1927–41. The project showcased large-scale rock engineering and New Deal-era logistics while sparking debates about Lakota lands. Today conservation manages fracture control, runoff, and visitor safety amid complex historical interpretation.
State booster Doane Robinson proposed a granite monument to spur tourism; sculptor Gutzon Borglum chose Mount Rushmore for its durable Harney Peak granite and southern exposure. The design shifted to presidents representing founding, expansion, development, and preservation.
Crews used dynamite for bulk removal and jackhammers and pneumatic chisels for refinement, finishing with “honeycombing” and bush hammering to achieve smooth skin. Steel reference points and a pointing machine scaled clay models to cliff faces with millimetric control. About 400 workers, many locals, labored without fatality—a notable safety record for the era.
Federal appropriations, private fundraising, and CCC-era support underwrote progress through the Depression. Borglum’s death in 1941 left final refinements to his son Lincoln Borglum; planned torsos were never completed.
The monument sits within the Black Hills (Ȟe Sápa), sacred to the Lakota and central to treaty disputes; contemporary interpretation acknowledges Indigenous perspectives. Conservation monitors fractures, installs anchors where needed, and manages freeze–thaw cycles and biological growth on granite surfaces.
