On October 4, 1927, carving began on the face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota.
Mount Rushmore broke ground on October 4, 1927, but it would take another 12 years for the granite images of four of America’s most revered presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt to be completed. .
The monument was the brainchild of a South Dakota historian named Doane Robinson, who was looking for a way to attract more tourists to the state. He hired a sculptor named Gutzon Borglum to carve the faces into the mountain.
The Lakota Sioux people, who consider the Black Hills to be sacred ground, strongly opposed the project. The mountain was formerly part of the Great Sioux Reservation before it was removed by the United States government.
According to the National Park Service, the first face to be chiseled was that of George Washington; Borglum first sculpted the head in the form of an egg, the features of it were added later.
Thomas Jefferson’s image was originally formed in the space to the right of Washington, but within two years his face was badly cracked. The workers had to demolish the mountain sculpture with dynamite. Borglum then started again with Jefferson, positioned on Washington’s left side.
Washington’s face was the first to be completed in 1934. Jefferson’s was dedicated in 1936, with then-President Franklin Roosevelt in attendance, and Lincoln’s was completed a year later. In 1939, Teddy Roosevelt’s face was completed. The project, which cost $1 million, was funded primarily by the federal government.
The artist continued to retouch his work on Mount Rushmore until he died suddenly in 1941. Borglum originally hoped to also carve a series of inscriptions on the mountain, depicting the history of the United States.