Mount Rushmore National Memorial features the faces of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Each head is 60 feet (18 meters) tall and carved into the granite on the southeast side of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the monument to symbolize America’s first 150 years: Washington to represent the country’s founding; Jefferson, its expansion across the continent; Roosevelt, its development domestically and as a global power; and Lincoln, its preservation through the ordeal of civil war. Work began in 1927 and continued until 1941.