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Mount Rushmore National Memorial, near Keystone, South Dakota, is a United States Presidential Memorial that represents the first 150 years of the history of the United States of America with 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of former U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. The entire memorial covers 1,278 acres (5.17 km²), and is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level. It is managed by the National Park Service, a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. The memorial attracts around 2 million people annually.

Known to the Lakota Sioux as Six Grandfathers, the mountain was renamed after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, during an expedition in 1885. At first, the project of carving Rushmore was undertaken to increase tourism in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. After long negotiations involving a Congressional delegation and President Calvin Coolidge, the project received Congressional approval. The carving started in 1927 and ended in 1941 with a few injuries and no deaths.

History

The geological formation of Mount Rushmore was known to the Lakota as Six Grandfathers; it was part of the route that Lakota leader Black Elk took in a spiritual journey that culminated at Harney Peak. Following a series of military campaigns in 1876-77, the United States asserted territorial control over the area, a claim that is still disputed on the basis of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie (see Controversy below). Among white American settlers, the peak was known variously as Cougar Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain, Slaughterhouse Mountain, and Keystone Cliffs. It was named Mount Rushmore during a prospecting expedition by Rushmore, David Swanzey and Bill Challis. Historian Doane Robinson conceived the idea for Mount Rushmore in 1923 to promote tourism in South Dakota. In 1924, Robinson persuaded sculptor Gutzon Borglum to travel to the Black Hills region to ensure that the carving could be accomplished. Borglum, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was then involved in sculpting a massive bas-relief memorial to Confederate leaders on Stone Mountain in Georgia. The original plan was to perform the carvings in granite pillars known as the Needles. However, Borglum realized that that plan was impossible because the eroded Needles were too thin to support sculpting. He chose Mount Rushmore, a grander spot, partly because it faced southeast and enjoyed maximum exposure to the sun. Borglum said upon seeing Mount Rushmore, "America will march along that skyline." Congress authorized the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission on March 3, 1925. President Coolidge insisted that along with Washington, two Republicans and one Democrat be portrayed.

Between October 4, 1927 and October 31, 1941, Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers sculpted the 60-foot (18-m) colossal carvings of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln to represent the first 150 years of American history. These presidents were selected by Borglum because of their role in preserving the Republic and expanding its territory.

In 1933, the National Park Service took Mount Rushmore under its jurisdiction. Engineer Julian Spotts helped with the project by improving its infrastructure. For example, he had the tram upgraded so that it could reach the top of Mount Rushmore for the ease of workers. By July 4, 1934, Washington's face had been completed and was dedicated. The face of Thomas Jefferson was dedicated in 1936, and the face of Abraham Lincoln was dedicated on September 17, 1937. In 1937, a bill was introduced in Congress to add the head of civil-rights leader Susan B. Anthony, but a rider was passed on an appropriations bill requiring that federal funds be used to finish only those heads that had already been started at that time. In 1939, the face of Theodore Roosevelt was dedicated.

The Sculptor's Studio—a display of unique plaster models and tools related to the sculpting—was built in 1939 under the direction of Borglum. Borglum died from an embolism in March 1941. His son, Lincoln Borglum, continued the project, but insufficient funding forced the carving to end. Originally, it was planned that the figures would be carved from head to waist. Borglum had also planned a massive panel in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase commemorating in eight-foot-tall gilded letters the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Louisiana Purchase, and seven other territorial acquisitions from Alaska to Texas to the Panama Canal Zone.

The entire project cost $989,992.32. Notably for a project of such size, no workers died during the carving.

On October 15, 1966, Mount Rushmore was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. An essay from Nebraska student William Andrew Burkett, selected as the winner for the college-age group in 1934, was placed on the Entablature on a bronze plate in 1973. In 1991, President George Bush officially dedicated Mount Rushmore.

Ten years of redevelopment work culminated with the completion of extensive visitor facilities and sidewalks in 1998, such as a Visitor Center, Museum, and the Presidential Trail. Maintenance of the memorial often requires mountain climbing to clean the memorial and remove lichens. On July 8, 2005, Kärcher GmbH, a German manufacturer of cleaning machines, conducted a cleanup operation of the faces by pressure washing for free; the washing used pressurized water at 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93°C).

Controversy

Mount Rushmore is controversial among Native Americans because the United States seized the area from the Lakota tribe after the Black Hills War in 1876–77. The Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) had previously granted the Black Hills to the Lakota in perpetuity. The Lakota consider the hills to be sacred, although historians believe the Lakota also gained control of the hills by force, displacing the Cheyenne in 1776. Members of the American Indian Movement led an occupation of the monument in 1971, naming it "Mount Crazy Horse." Among the participants were young activists, grandparents, children and Lakota holy man John Fire Lame Deer, who planted a prayer staff atop the mountain. Lame Deer said the staff formed a symbolic shroud over the presidents' faces "which shall remain dirty until the treaties concerning the Black Hills are fulfilled."

The Monument remains controversial among Native Americans, even after the appointment of Gerard Baker, the first Native American superintendent of the park in 2004. The Crazy Horse Memorial is being constructed elsewhere in the Black Hills to commemorate a famous Native American leader and as a response to Mount Rushmore. It is intended to be larger than Mount Rushmore and has the support of Lakota chiefs; the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation has rejected offers of federal funds.

Ecology

The flora and fauna of Mount Rushmore are similar to those of the rest of the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Several birds like the turkey vulture, bald eagle, hawk, and meadowlark fly around Mount Rushmore, occasionally making nesting spots in the ledges of the mountain. Smaller birds, including songbirds, nuthatches, and woodpeckers, inhabit the surrounding pine forests. Terrestrial mammals include the mouse, chipmunk, squirrel, skunk, porcupine, raccoon, beaver, badger, coyote, bighorn sheep and bobcat. In addition, several species of frogs and snakes inhabit the region. The two brooks in the memorial, the Grizzly Bear and Starling Basin brooks, support fish like the longnose dace and the brook trout. Some endemic animals are not indigenous to the area; the mountain goats are descended from goats which were a gift from Canada to Custer State Park in 1924 but later escaped.

At lower elevations, coniferous trees, mainly the Ponderosa pine, surround most of the monument, providing shade from the sun. Other trees include the bur oak, the Black Hills spruce, and the cottonwood. Nine species of shrubs live near Mount Rushmore. There is also a wide variety of wildflowers, including especially the snapdragon, sunflower, and violet. Towards higher elevations, plant life becomes sparser. However, only approximately 5% of the plant species found in the Black Hills are indigenous to the region.

Though the area receives about 18 inches (460 mm) of precipitation on average per year, alone it is not enough to support the abundant animal and plant life. Trees and other plants help to control surface runoff. Dikes, seeps, and springs help to dam up water that is flowing downhill, providing watering spots for animals. In addition, stones like sandstone and limestone help to hold groundwater, creating aquifers.

Forest fires occur in the Ponderosa forests surrounding Mount Rushmore around every 27 years. This was determined from fire scars in tree core samples. These help to clean forest debris located on the ground. Large conflagrations are rare, but have occurred in the past.

Geology

Mount Rushmore is largely composed of granite. The memorial is carved on the northwest margin of the Harney Peak granite batholith in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so the geologic formations of the heart of the Black Hills region are also evident at Mount Rushmore. The batholith magma intruded into the pre-existing mica schist rocks during the Precambrian period about 1.6 billion years ago. However, the uneven cooling of the molten rock caused the formation of both fine and coarse-grained minerals, including quartz, feldspar, muscovite, and biotite. Fractures in the granite were sealed by pegmatite dikes. The light-colored streaks in the presidents' foreheads are due to these dikes.

The Black Hills granites were exposed to erosion during the late Precambrian, but were buried by sandstones and other sediments during the Cambrian Period. The area remained buried throughout the Paleozoic Era, but was exposed again to erosion during the tectonic uplift about 70 million years ago. The Black Hills area was uplifted as an elongated geologic dome which towered some 20,000 feet (6 km) above sea level, but erosion wore the area down to only 4,000 feet (1.2 km). The subsequent natural erosion of this mountain range allowed the carvings by stripping the granite of the overlying sediments and the softer adjacent schists. The contact between the granite and darker schist is viewable just below the sculpture of Washington.

Borglum selected Mount Rushmore as the site for several reasons. The rock of the mountain is composed of smooth, fine-grained granite. The durable granite erodes only 1 inch (2.5 cm) every 10,000 years, indicating that it was sturdy enough to support sculpting. In addition, it was the tallest mountain in the region, looming to a height of 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level. Because the mountain faces the southeast, the workers also had the advantage of sunlight for most of the day.

Tourism

Tourism is South Dakota's second-largest industry, with Mount Rushmore being its number one tourist attraction. In 2004, over 2 million visitors traveled to the memorial.

The Lincoln Borglum Museum is located in the memorial. It features two 125-seat theaters that show a 13-minute movie about Mount Rushmore. One of the best viewpoints is located at Grandview Terrace, above the Museum. The Presidential Trail, a walking trail and boardwalk, starts at Grandview Terrace and winds through the Ponderosa pine forests to the Sculptor's Studio, providing close-up views of the memorial. The Sculptor's studio was built by Gutzon Borglum, and features discussion about the construction of the monument as well as the tools used. The amphitheater also has a 30-minute program at dusk that describes the construction of the memorial. Following that, the mountain is illuminated for two hours.

Appearances in popular culture

Because Mount Rushmore has large carved faces, appearances of Mount Rushmore in the media often include a replacement of one or more of the four presidents' faces with other people or characters.

• In Superman II, General Zod and his criminal partners use their superpowers to replace three of the carvings with their own faces and wipe out the fourth.
• Deep Purple's album, In Rock, has the cover inspired by Mount Rushmore: it depicts the five members' faces instead of the four presidents.
• The cover of the February 1957 issue of MAD Magazine (Issue #31) depicts Mount Rushmore, but adds a fifth face: that of Alfred E. Neuman. The cover was later featured (in truncated form) as a MAD mini-poster in MAD Special #4 (1971), with the caption: "Where Have All The Statesmen Gone?". A preview of this poster graces the cover of the MAD Special.
• In a deleted scene from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the monument is shown with the head of a female African-American president added.

Because the mountain is an important historical landmark, it is often used as a base for various action-themed movies and books. Mount Rushmore is featured in Team America: World Police as the Team America headquarters, where it was destroyed by Michael Moore's suicide bomb.

The memorial was famously used as the location of the final chase scene in Alfred Hitchcock's movie North by Northwest. However, it was not actually filmed at the monument, since permission to shoot an attempted killing on the face of a national monument was refused by the Park Service. Closeups were shot on a set.

In the Family Guy episode "North by North Quahog", Peter and Lois are chased down the monument by Mel Gibson after stealing a copy of his new movie, Passion of the Christ 2: Crucify This in a spoof of the chase scene from North by Northwest. Peter refers to one of the faces as "President Rushmore".

Beginning in 1975, Mount Rushmore has been referenced, featured and spoofed by the Muppets on over half a dozen separate occasions.

See also

• Crazy Horse Memorial, a nearby mountain carving of a Native American leader.

Notes and references

1. Mount Rushmore National Memorial. December 6 2005.60 SD Web Traveler, Inc. URL accessed on April 7 2006.
2. McGeveran, William A. Jr. et al (2004). The Word Almanac and Book of Facts 2004. New York: World Almanac Education Group, Inc. ISBN 0-88687-910-8.
3. ^ Mount Rushmore, South Dakota (November 1 2004). Peakbagger.com. URL accessed on March 13 2006.
4. ^ Mount Rushmore facts, National Park Service. Cite error: The named reference "NPSfacts" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
5. Belanger, Ian A. et al. Mt. Rushmore- presidents on the rocks. URL accessed on March 13 2006.
6. ^ Keystone Area Historical Society Keystone Characters (accessed October 3 2006). Cite error: The named reference "KAHS" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
7. Albert Boime, "Patriarchy Fixed in Stone: Gutzon Borglum's 'Mount Rushmore'," American Art, Vol. 5, No. 1/2. (Winter - Spring, 1991), p. 165.
8. ^ Carving History (October 2 2004). National Park Service. Cite error: The named reference "NPS" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
9. Fite, Gilbert C. Mount Rushmore (May 2003). ISBN 0-9646798-5-X, the standard scholarly study.
10. ^ Albert Boime, "Patriarchy Fixed in Stone: Gutzon Borglum's 'Mount Rushmore'," American Art, Vol. 5, No. 1/2. (Winter - Spring, 1991), pp. 142-67.
11. ^ American Experience "Timeline: Mount Rushmore" (2002). URL accessed on March 20 2006. Cite error: The named reference "timeline" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
12. Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
13. Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Tourism in South Dakota. Laura R. Ahmann. URL accessed on March 19 2006.
14. Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Outdoorplaces.com. URL accessed on June 7 2006.
15. Mount Rushmore faces finally washed (July 30 2005). CNN. URL accessed on March 20 2006.
16. Matthew Glass, "Producing Patriotic Inspiration at Mount Rushmore," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 62, No. 2. (Summer, 1994), pp. 265-283.
17. First American Indian heads shrine to democracy, Indian Country Today. Accessed on April 3 2006
18. Nature & Science- Animals National Park Service. URL accessed on April 1 2006.
19. ^ Mount Rushmore- Flora and Fauna. American Park Network. URL accessed on March 16 2006. Cite error: The named reference "FloraFauna" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
20. Nature & Science- Mount Rushmore. National Park Service. URL accessed on March 13 2006.
21. Nature & Science- Groundwater. National Park Service. URL accessed on April 1 2006.
22. Nature & Science- Forests. National Park Service. URL accessed on April 1 2006.
23. ^ Geologic Activity. National Park Service.
24. Irvin, James R. Great Plains Gallery (2001). URL accessed on March 16 2006.
25. Park Overview American Park Network. URL accessed on April 1 2006.
26. Cover of MAD #31 (February 1957), Doug Gilford's MAD Cover Site. URL accessed on December 5, 2006.
27. Cover of MAD Special #4 (1971), Dick Hanschette's MAD Site - Special Covers. URL accessed on December 6, 2006

Further reading

• The National Parks: Index 2001-2003. Washington: U.S. Department of the Interior.
• Taliaferro, John. Great White Fathers : The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore. New York : PublicAffairs, c2002. Puts the creation of the monument into a historical and cultural context.

External links

• Official Site
• The Making of Mount Rushmore
• Climate
• A Monumental Achievement
• Google Map Link
• Matthew Buckingham, The Six Grandfathers, Paha Sapa, in the Year 502,002 C.E.

• IUCN Category V
• Abraham Lincoln
• Buildings and monuments honoring American Presidents
• George Washington
• Mountain monuments and memorials
• National Memorials of the United States
• Outdoor sculptures in the United States
• Rock formations in the United States
• Landmarks in South Dakota
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Thomas Jefferson
• 1941 works
• Registered Historic Places in South Dakota