Qualla: Mount Rushmore National Memorial

Mount Rushmore National Memorial: Introduction

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NPS Photo, Public domain. Every morning for fourteen years, workers climbed 700 stairs to the top of a mountain in the Black Hills. Then they strapped into bosun chairs suspended by 3/8-inch steel cables and lowered themselves over the edge, dangling 500 feet above the ground to blast and carve four faces from living granite. Not one of them died. The memorial was declared complete on October 31, 1941, but sculptor Gutzon Borglum had envisioned something far grander. His original plans showed the presidents from head to waist. Behind their faces, a Hall of Records would preserve the Constitution and Declaration of Independence for civilizations thousands of years hence. None of it was finished.

Image: NPS Photo | Public domain

Mount Rushmore National Memorial: Stolen Mountain, American Icon

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris M Morris, CC BY 2.0. Before anyone called it Rushmore, this mountain had no English name. The Black Hills were sacred to the Lakota people, guaranteed to them forever by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. That guarantee lasted until gold was discovered. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled the se...

Image: Chris M Morris | CC BY 2.0

Mount Rushmore National Memorial: The Powdermen's Art

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kj.labalan, CC BY 2.0. Ninety percent of Mount Rushmore was carved with dynamite. The powdermen were artists in their own right, cutting and placing charges of precise sizes to remove exact amounts of rock. They calculated blast patterns that would shear away tons of granite without damaging the final ...

Image: kj.labalan | CC BY 2.0

Mount Rushmore National Memorial: The Vision That Died with Borglum

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rachel.miller727, CC BY-SA 3.0. Gutzon Borglum dreamed bigger than four faces. His original design showed Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln from head to waist, their bodies emerging from the mountain as if rising from the stone itself. Behind them, carved into the canyon, a Hall of Records would hou...

Image: Rachel.miller727 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mount Rushmore National Memorial: Four Faces, Four Stories

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shah Ronak S, CC BY-SA 4.0. From left to right: George Washington, father of the nation, his 60-foot face emerging first and setting the scale for all that followed. Thomas Jefferson, originally planned for Washington's right side but moved to his left when the rock proved unsuitable. Theodore Roosevelt, th...

Image: Shah Ronak S | CC BY-SA 4.0

Mount Rushmore National Memorial: The Presidential Amphitheater

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ahzoov, CC BY-SA 4.0. The memorial operates as a sort of natural amphitheater. Visitors follow the Avenue of Flags, one for each state, to the Grand View Terrace. From there, the four presidents stare down from their granite perch. The Presidential Trail offers a closer view for those willing to walk....

Image: Ahzoov | CC BY-SA 4.0