Mount Rushmore Declared Finished! Four Presidents Agree to Stop at the Shoulders
The jackhammers have fallen silent in the Black Hills, and this reporter can confirm that for the first time since 1927, nobody is dangling off George Washington's nose. As of today, October 31, 1941, Mount Rushmore National Memorial has been declared a completed project.
The final drilling took place under the direction of Lincoln Borglum, son of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who conceived the memorial and fought for its funding for most of his life. The elder Borglum died this past March in Chicago. Lincoln has carried on, and today he carried on right up to the point of stopping.
Visitors expecting the full program should note that the original designs called for the presidents to appear down to the waist. Officials now confirm the figures will remain heads, a decision observers describe as "bold," "economical," and "honestly, still very large." Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln were each asked whether they minded. All four maintained a granite silence.
The figures were dedicated one at a time: Washington in 1930, Jefferson in 1936, Lincoln in 1937 and Roosevelt in 1939. Roughly 90 percent of the carving was done with dynamite, making this the only major art project in history where the sculptor's chief tool was also the reason the neighbors moved.
Nearly 400 men and women worked the mountain, from drillers in bosun's chairs to the call boys who perched on the edge shouting instructions to the winch house. Pay ran about $8 a day. The work was dangerous, the hours long, and yet, remarkably, not one worker was killed during the entire carving, a safety record this newspaper's own stairwell cannot match.
Total cost is reported at just under $990,000. The idea began in 1923 with state historian Doane Robinson, who simply wanted to bring tourists to South Dakota. Tourists, informed of this, have already begun packing.
I Was Promised a Torso
Fellow Americans, I studied the plans. I saw the lapels. I saw Lincoln's hand on his coat. And today I am told the gentlemen will be appearing in a strictly head-and-neck capacity.
I do not blame the workers, who hung off a cliff for $8 a day and deserve medals the size of Jefferson's nostrils. I blame whoever decided a mountain could be finished in the first place. Mountains are never finished. They are merely abandoned by sculptors and handed to erosion, which I understand works at roughly one inch every 10,000 years. I will check back.
On October 31, 1941, final drilling at Mount Rushmore took place under Lincoln Borglum, and the memorial was declared complete after work began on October 4, 1927. Gutzon Borglum had died on March 6, 1941, and his death plus the approach of World War II ended the work. About 400 people worked on the carving, roughly 90% of the rock was removed with dynamite, the memorial cost $989,992.32, and no one died during the carving.