Today in History—October 4: Work Begins on Mount Rushmore

Some people sculpt with a hammer and chisel. Gutzon Borglum sculpted with dynamite, and on this day in 1927 he began work on Mount Rushmore.

And it was all to increase tourism to South Dakota. (Spoiler alert: It worked.)

State historian Doane Robinson wanted to create a monument to the Old West, featuring both pioneers and Native leaders, to attract tourists. He contacted sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who had gotten attention for his huge bust of U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln (now in the Capitol Crypt) and was then working on a monument to the leaders of the Confederate States of America.

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The chosen location in the Black Hills belonged by treaty to the Oceti Sakowin (under the name Sioux Nation) but had since been annexed by the United States. The mountain, known to the Indigenous inhabitants of the region as the Six Grandfathers, was considered sacred, and construction commenced over the vehement objections of Native Americans.

To give the monument national appeal, Borglum decided to sculpt presidents. He chose the ones he felt represented important moments in the country’s history: its founding (George Washington), territorial expansion (Thomas Jefferson), economic development (Theodore Roosevelt), and preservation during the Civil War (Abraham Lincoln).

Carving the mountain required hundreds of workers. Many spent their days suspended from steel cables, raised and lowered along the mountainside by hand cranks. “Callboys” helped suspended workers communicate with crank operators so that they weren’t accidentally dragged up the face of the mountain.

Explosive charges, carefully cut by powdermen, were set off when workers were off the mountain. After enough rock had been removed, drillers used jackhammers to refine the shape before carvers came in. Carvers would “honeycomb” the rock, drilling a shallow grid and then pulling the stone off by hand. Finally, they added fine detailing with pneumatic hammers.

The work continued for 14 years. Borglum died in March 1941, and his son, Lincoln, who’d been helping him for the final two years of work, oversaw the last months of construction. The monument was declared finished on October 31, 1941.

In the decades since, it has attracted tourists, just as Robinson had hoped—with more than two million people visiting the gigantic carving each year.