Mount Rushmore was initially intended to be a tourist attraction to reflect figures of the American West, a concept formed by state Historian Doane Robinson. Robinson took his idea to state senator Peter Norbeck who was instrumental in the formation of what is now known as Custer State Park. Master sculptor Gutzon Borglum was brought in and it was he who conceived of a more ambitious and iconic plan for the monument. Work officially began on the monument on October 4, 1927, and would take 14 years to complete.
Mount Rushmore itself stands at an elevation of 5,725 feet with the faces at 5,500 feet above sea level. Each face depicted measures around 60 feet from the top of the head to the chin with the nose of each being about 20 feet long. The mouths on the carvings measure about 18 feet across and the eyes are about 11 feet across. The scale of the faces is such that if they were part of a full body statue they would stand at around 465 feet in height.
The construction of the carvings required exceptionally skilled explosive experts who were able to blast areas of the hard granite rock face away with amazing accuracy. Using facial models made of the four presidents and a scale of 1:12 of one inch to one foot, Borglum mapped out the areas he required to be blasted. Once an approximate face shape was created, the rest of the process was completed using pneumatic drills. The whole project cost around $1 million and by the end of the project over 400,000 tons of rock were removed from the mountain.
The monument underwent several dedication ceremonies during construction. The first was its dedication as a monument on October 1, 1925. The first face completed on the monument was Washington's, the dedication for which was held on July 4, 1930. It took a further six years to complete Jefferson's face with the dedication taking place on August 30, 1936. Lincoln's sculpture was completed just over a year later and was dedicated on September 17, 1937. The final dedication for Roosevelt's sculpture came on July 2, 1939, with the whole project finally reaching completion on October 31, 1941. Gutzon Borglum ultimately did not live to see the monument completed; he died in March 1941, leaving his son, Lincoln, to finish the project in his name.
