Original blueprint reveals the extraordinary story of Mount Rushmore and what it was supposed to be
Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which features the faces of four US Presidents carved into a mountain, is one of the most popular attractions for tourists in the US. Located in South Dakota's Black Hills region, the artwork depicts Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Its construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1941, but what most don't know is that this landmark remained unfinished according to the original blueprint.
According to UNILAD, the construction workers and sculptors were unable to complete a sculpture that was supposed to be on the side of Mount Rushmore according to the original design by sculptor Gutzon Borglum. His initial plan included a big inscription called the Entablature on the eastern side of the mountain, which was to be shaped like the land of the Louisiana Purchase. The Entablature was meant to depict a brief history of the United States of America, and Borglum also created a scale replica of the full sculpture in 1925, featuring the torsos of Washington and Lincoln in fine detail, as documented by Rise Studio.
But everything couldn't go through as planned since the United States Congress threatened to cut off all funding for the project, as per UNILAD. A new sculptor, Henry Agustus Lukeman took over the project after Borglum, according to Smithsonian Magazine. "Every able man in America refused it, and thank God, every Christian. They got a Jew," Borglum later said about Lukeman replacing him, as per the publication. Finally, a third sculptor Walker Kirtland Hancock was able to complete the memorial in 1972. However, Borglum was in charge of carving a significant portion of the project, which he began at the age of 60, before dedicating the last 14 years of his life to it.
Lincoln, Borglum's son, oversaw the completion of the Mount Rushmore sculptures, where almost two million visitors walk from the Mount Rushmore National Memorial's entrance in South Dakota to the Avenue of Flags to peer up at the 60-foot tall faces of former US presidents immortalized in the mountain, every year. According to Travel South Dakota, attractions such as a visitor center called the Lincoln Borglum Museum and the Presidential Trail have been added over the years. Other steps being taken to preserve Mount Rushmore include the installation of 8,000 feet of camouflaged copper wire in 1998 to help monitor 144 hairline cracks. The copper wire was replaced with fiber optic cable in 2009.
As breathtaking as the visages on the rock carvings may appear, they were not completed without challenges. The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux, who were natives inhabiting the area before white immigrants arrived. According to the Public Broadcasting Service, the four presidents engraved on the hill were negative symbols for the natives. In the Treaty of 1868, the United States government promised to protect the Sioux territory but the federal government later forced the Sioux community to give up the Black Hills portion of their reservation, according to the outlet.
