Four giant faces carved into a mountain gaze out

Mount Rushmore

Four giant faces carved into a mountain gaze out over the Black Hills in southwestern South Dakota. They are the faces of four American presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. This is the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, one of the world’s largest sculptures. Each face is as high as a six-story building!

WHO CREATED MOUNT RUSHMORE?

In 1925, the American government decided to create a national memorial honoring four of its greatest presidents. American sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed the memorial. He chose a massive granite bluff called Mount Rushmore as the site for his enormous sculpture.

Workers began cutting the faces from Mount Rushmore in 1927. It took more than 14 years to finish the memorial.

HOW DID THEY WORK ON MOUNT RUSHMORE?

Workers used dynamite, jackhammers, and chisels to shape the faces into the bluff. The work was very dangerous, taking place hundreds of feet above the valley below. Between 1927 and 1941, 400 men worked on the Mount Rushmore memorial.

Washington’s face was the first one carved out of the granite. Jefferson’s face followed. Next came the face of Lincoln, and last of all, Roosevelt.

Borglum died before Roosevelt’s face was finished. Borglum's son, named Lincoln, completed the memorial late in 1941.

Mount Rushmore is cared for by the National Park Service. At night, the faces look especially spectacular, brightly lit against a dark sky!