PDF - Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) - Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore or Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe (Lakota: The Six Grandfathers)
Mount Rushmore, or Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, is one of several mountains in the Black Hills, or Pahá Sápa. These formations, as well as other land features that surround them, are the basis of creation myths for many indigenous cultures. The land is considered sacred by those who, for thousands of years, have lived in the area.
The United States government, in its effort to expand American territories westward, forced treaties upon Native American communities which allocated Pahá Sápa to the Lakota (also known as Sioux) people. Upon the discovery of gold in the region, the U.S. government broke the treaties and took measures to prevent any indigenous people from hunting on or occupying the land. As of November 2022, this dispute is ongoing.
This "taming of the Black Hills" was viewed by colonists as a triumph over wilderness, and the land was set aside to preserve the natural scenery for future generations. In spite of this, in an effort to memorialize this "victory" and entice tourists to the region, massive portraits of presidents who led the United States through periods of transition were carved into the rockface. Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln, led the carving of Mount Rushmore, a fourteen year effort executed by a few hundred sculptors, miners, and rock climbers. Despite the death of Gutzon during construction and eventual depletion of project funds, Mount Rushmore is an icon of American mythology. It is the most popular tourist attraction in South Dakota, with over 2.5 million visitors in 2021.
Description
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is located inside Black Hills National Forest near the eastern border, on Highway 244 in southwestern South Dakota. The mountain is 5,725 feet above sea level and, before carving, was a series of high rounded granite domes surrounded by limestone and several other varieties of rock. The heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, each roughly sixty feet tall, are carved into the southeastern side of the mountain. An incomplete Hall of Records, currently housing enamel panels that tell the story of how Mount Rushmore came to be, exists in a small valley immediately behind the portraits. The surrounding area is 1,278 acres. Amid ponderosa pine trees, the memorial park contains nature trails, a visitor center, amphitheater, restaurant, and parking to support visitors of the colossal sculpture.
History
The granite in Pahá Sápa, of which Mount Rushmore is composed, was formed by volcanic activity within Earth's core during the Precambrian geological era approximately 1.6 billion years ago. Over time, the rocks above the granite eroded away and an uplift related to the formation of the Rocky Mountains shaped the varied geological landscape seen today.
The age and depth of the rock formations, as well as the unique beauty of the landscape, provide a natural backdrop for stories of creation, struggle, and survival that have made the land significant to people who inhabited the area for thousands of years. Before American colonialism, Pahá Sápa was never permanently occupied. Rather, it was the center of spiritual life, reserved for ceremonies and meditation. Indigenous American cultures share a sense that people belong to their lands, not the other way around — land is not the set on which life is staged, but the sacred wellspring of life itself.
As the colonies pushed westward, tensions between Native people and American settlers heightened. The Lakota responded to the invasion of their hunting grounds by raiding trains, which gave American forces the excuse they needed to treat indigenous people as an enemy obstructing the assembly of their empire. From 1865 to 1867, the Lakota and American armies were in an all-out war, which ended in Lakota victory — the only instance in American history where the U.S. conceded to all demands of a victor. The Treaty of Fort Laramie guaranteed ownership of Pahá Sápa to the Lakota.
Upon the discovery of gold and a wealth of other resources in what we now call the Black Hills, the U.S. government unilaterally terminated the Fort Laramie Treaty and informed the Lakota that they must cede the disputed land and cease hunting outside of their assigned reservation boundaries — land that was deemed unfertile. If they refused, they would be deprived of rations; if they submitted, they would receive subsistence rations as long as necessary.
This, combined with the spread of pathogens brought from the Old World, dramatically reduced indigenous populations and forced Native Americans to assimilate into Euro-American culture. The Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 further divided reservation land into parcels. A once-nomadic culture was relegated to farming practices on land that couldn't grow things, and when those attempts failed, the parcels were bought by colonialists seeking to establish cattle ranches.
From the perspective of the white American settler, stretching the United States from ocean to ocean was a God-given right — initiated by Thomas Jefferson, justified by Darwinism, and rooted in the misguided belief that people of Caucasian descent had established themselves at the top of the evolutionary ladder. Theodore Roosevelt, a North Dakota transplant from New York and former cattle rancher, practiced the religion of "Americanism," believing that European migrants, upon colonizing the Americas, had evolved into masters of the land. Though not overtly discriminatory against Native Americans, he failed to acknowledge that this ideology of inevitability resulted in the displacement of many indigenous people. Roosevelt's connection to the wilderness made conservation a central issue of his presidency — through executive order, he declared more land preserves, parks, and protected forests than any of his predecessors combined. The Black Hills Forest Preserve was established October 31, 1905.
In 1923, Doane Robinson, South Dakota's state historian, began exploring ways to promote tourism, believing the natural landscape was not impressive enough on its own to compel people to travel. He wrote to Gutzon Borglum, an American sculptor then living in Stonewall, Georgia, where he had started work on a colossal sculpture commissioned by the Ku Klux Klan before leaving the project due to conflicts with the organization's leaders. During that project, Borglum developed the techniques he would later use at Mount Rushmore.
In 1925, the U.S. Congress authorized the creation of a memorial in the Black Hills. Originally conceived to feature heroes of the American West, including Lakota leaders, Borglum brought forth an idea to personify Manifest Destiny through representation of presidents who advanced the United States toward completion of that prophecy: George Washington, for leading the country to independence; Thomas Jefferson, for writing the Declaration of Independence and finalizing the Louisiana Purchase; Abraham Lincoln, for preserving the Union; and Theodore Roosevelt, for building the Panama Canal and completing a passage to the East first sought by Christopher Columbus.
The mountain was selected for its southeastern exposure and light-colored, sturdy granite with a fine grain. The original design depicted the presidents' torsos and included a scroll in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase bearing text of the Declaration of Independence. Construction began in 1927. During his presidency, Franklin Delano Roosevelt actively supported the project, exploiting its popular appeal to promote New Deal policies — Mount Rushmore functioned, in part, as a large-scale public works project designed to employ the unemployed. Borglum hired sculptors, miners, and rock climbers, but despite needing several hundred workers, he hired no African American, Asian American, or Jewish workers. His earlier association with the Ku Klux Klan was not by coincidence.
Workers began each day climbing seven hundred stairs to the top of the sculpture, then were lowered to the faces by bosun chair. They were paid eight dollars per day and endured extreme heat, cold, and wind. Ninety percent of the carving was done with dynamite, using a technique Borglum developed at Stone Mountain, where the amount of rock removed was measured by the size of the dynamite charges. To carve detail, workers drilled holes close together in a honeycomb pattern and broke away the weakened stone. Mount Rushmore was put under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service in 1933, and despite the danger involved, no fatalities occurred during construction. Gutzon Borglum died of a heart attack in 1941, and with the outbreak of World War II, funds dissipated and the project was declared complete that October.
A visitor center was added in 1957 as part of Mission 66, an effort by the National Park Service to improve facilities and visitor experience across the parks. Traffic quickly outpaced those improvements after 1959, following the release of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, whose final scene takes place at the top of Mount Rushmore. Over the following fifty years, a park designed to accommodate two thousand visitors per day was seeing as many as five thousand per hour, causing erosion and damaging vegetation. A master plan completed in 2001 addressed these issues by adding parking, widening circulation paths, and upgrading viewing and accessibility facilities. Improvements to the site are ongoing, with no sign of visitorship decline.
Mount Rushmore is an irreversible mark on Pahá Sápa that inadvertently — or overtly — celebrates the dominance of one culture over another. The land contains many histories and remains contentious, with no clear path to reconciliation. In spite of this, perhaps the feat of human ability that brought Mount Rushmore into existence could inspire how to proceed: away from "ours," and toward "us."