While South Dakota is nothing like Hawaii, tourism is its second largest industry. Mount Rushmore, near the city of Keystone, is South Dakota's top tourist attraction, drawing nearly two million people annually.
Mount Rushmore, South DakotaSouth Dakota historian Doane Robinson thought of the idea of carving Mount Rushmore in 1923, in order to draw tourists to South Dakota's Black Hills. He envisioned honoring western heroes such as Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Sioux warriors. He persuaded Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of the Confederate Memorial Carving on Stone Mountain in Georgia, also an active member of the Ku Klux Klan, to visit the Black Hills to determine if the project was possible. Borglum chose the location of Mount Rushmore because it was the tallest mountain in the region, composed of smooth, fine-grained granite that only erodes one inch every ten thousand years, and because it faced southeast, with maximum exposure to the sun. When he chose the location, he said, "America will march along that skyline."
Work began on the sculpture in October, 1927, just before the onset of the Great Depression, and ended October 31, 1941, five weeks before the Pearl Harbor bombing. Dynamite was used in the carving, to blast the rock into a general shape and remove rock from the mountain until a thin, three to six inch layer of granite remained. Borglum often complained that he had to use miners to carve his masterpiece rather than artists. According to PBS, "To control the blasting, sticks of dynamite would be cut down to make smaller charges, up to 70 for one detonation. The drill holes would be filled with these caps, and twice a day, at lunch and 4 p.m., the end of the work day, when all the workmen were off the face of Rushmore, the dynamite was detonated. After the mining work ended, carvers followed with the process of honeycombing, in which a series of shallow holes in a closely spaced grid were drilled, then the grids were removed by drilling obliquely, leaving the carvers very close to a finished surface."
Gutzon Borglum and four hundred workers sculpted four faces of United States presidents, sixty feet tall, representing the first 150 years of American history. Borglum selected George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln because they were important in "preserving the Republic and expanding its territory."
In 1933 the Mount Rushmore Memorial project came under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. NPS engineer Julian Spotts worked with Borglum on some of the technical aspects, upgrading the tram to the top of the mountain so workers could move up and down the mountain more safely and efficiently. Spotts also improved the air compressors, used to remove the layers of granite dust. Remarkably, during the fourteen years of construction, no workers were killed.
Borglum was a public relations genius. George Washington's face was covered with a 39 by 70 foot flag sewed by local Rapid City women before it was revealed to the public on July 4, 1934. President Franklin Roosevelt was present at the dedication of Thomas Jefferson's face in 1936, commenting, "I had no conception, until about ten minutes ago, not only of its magnitude, but also its permanent beauty and importance...Let us hope that our descendants will believe we have honestly striven every day and generation to preserve a decent land to live in and a decent form of government to operate under." On September 17, 1937, the 150th anniversary of the Constitution's signing, Abraham Lincoln's face was dedicated. And two years later, on July 2, 1939, with newly installed modern plumbing and night lighting, Theodore Roosevelt's face was dedicated. When the flag was removed to reveal his face, the lighting system illuminated it, followed by a fireworks show.
Work began on the sculpture in October, 1927, just before the onset of the Great Depression, and ended October 31, 1941, five weeks before the Pearl Harbor bombing. Dynamite was used in the carving, to blast the rock into a general shape and remove rock from the mountain until a thin, three to six inch layer of granite remained. Borglum often complained that he had to use miners to carve his masterpiece rather than artists. According to PBS, "To control the blasting, sticks of dynamite would be cut down to make smaller charges, up to 70 for one detonation. The drill holes would be filled with these caps, and twice a day, at lunch and 4 p.m., the end of the work day, when all the workmen were off the face of Rushmore, the dynamite was detonated. After the mining work ended, carvers followed with the process of honeycombing, in which a series of shallow holes in a closely spaced grid were drilled, then the grids were removed by drilling obliquely, leaving the carvers very close to a finished surface."
Gutzon Borglum and four hundred workers sculpted four faces of United States presidents, sixty feet tall, representing the first 150 years of American history. Borglum selected George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln because they were important in "preserving the Republic and expanding its territory."
In 1933 the Mount Rushmore Memorial project came under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. NPS engineer Julian Spotts worked with Borglum on some of the technical aspects, upgrading the tram to the top of the mountain so workers could move up and down the mountain more safely and efficiently. Spotts also improved the air compressors, used to remove the layers of granite dust. Remarkably, during the fourteen years of construction, no workers were killed.
Borglum was a public relations genius. George Washington's face was covered with a 39 by 70 foot flag sewed by local Rapid City women before it was revealed to the public on July 4, 1934. President Franklin Roosevelt was present at the dedication of Thomas Jefferson's face in 1936, commenting, "I had no conception, until about ten minutes ago, not only of its magnitude, but also its permanent beauty and importance...Let us hope that our descendants will believe we have honestly striven every day and generation to preserve a decent land to live in and a decent form of government to operate under." On September 17, 1937, the 150th anniversary of the Constitution's signing, Abraham Lincoln's face was dedicated. And two years later, on July 2, 1939, with newly installed modern plumbing and night lighting, Theodore Roosevelt's face was dedicated. When the flag was removed to reveal his face, the lighting system illuminated it, followed by a fireworks show.
Back of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
Controversial faces and location
Mount Rushmore provokes controversy because the United States seized the area from the Lakota tribe after the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877. Previously, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had permanently granted the Black Hills to the Lakota, and they considered them sacred hunting and burial grounds. To many Native Americans, a monument with the faces of four presidents who led the nation during the time of the acquisition of Indian land, is offensive.
Gerard Baker, the first Native American superintendent of Mount Rushmore, was appointed in 2004. In an interview with Ken Burns for The National Parks, Baker said,
Gerard Baker, Superintendent of Mount Rushmore, 2004 - present
"There were two places in my career I told my family I would never work. One of them was Little Bighorn and the other was Mount Rushmore. And I've been superintendent at both of them now. Coming to Mount Rushmore - it was very challenging to accept the job, because for Indian people it means the desecration of the sacred Black Hills; it means the losing of the Black Hills; a lot of negative things.
But I'm proud of the fact that I am the first American Indian to be a superintendent there, telling the freedoms that America has to offer and the democracy that we have in America. When I first came, I'd go out in the park and I would watch people. They would look at those four presidents and they'd get teary-eyed. This place draws emotion. And it should. But we were only telling half the story.
We need to look at all the stories, not only talk about those four presidents and what they did as far as freedom is concerned. We also have to start talking about what happened to everybody. Mount Rushmore gives us that opportunity. We're promoting all cultures of America. That's what this place is. For goodness sake, this is Mount Rushmore. It's America."
www.bluecomic.com/archive/2008
www.redbubble.com/.../132621-12-mount-rushmore
Controversial faces and locationGerard Baker, the first Native American superintendent of Mount Rushmore, was appointed in 2004. In an interview with Ken Burns for The National Parks, Baker said,
Gerard Baker, Superintendent of Mount Rushmore, 2004 - present"There were two places in my career I told my family I would never work. One of them was Little Bighorn and the other was Mount Rushmore. And I've been superintendent at both of them now. Coming to Mount Rushmore - it was very challenging to accept the job, because for Indian people it means the desecration of the sacred Black Hills; it means the losing of the Black Hills; a lot of negative things.
But I'm proud of the fact that I am the first American Indian to be a superintendent there, telling the freedoms that America has to offer and the democracy that we have in America. When I first came, I'd go out in the park and I would watch people. They would look at those four presidents and they'd get teary-eyed. This place draws emotion. And it should. But we were only telling half the story.
We need to look at all the stories, not only talk about those four presidents and what they did as far as freedom is concerned. We also have to start talking about what happened to everybody. Mount Rushmore gives us that opportunity. We're promoting all cultures of America. That's what this place is. For goodness sake, this is Mount Rushmore. It's America."
www.bluecomic.com/archive/2008
www.travelblog.org/.../Badlands/blog-155551.html
www.buffetoblog.wordpress.com/
www.elefun-desktop.com/products/list/25
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rushmore/peopleevents/e_carving.html
The National Parks, Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009
Regional Landscapes of the United States and Canada, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009
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