Thursday 4 October 2012

Mount Rushmore

Built as a fund raiser for the area and being named after a junior attorney is not the first couple of things that spring to mind when you think of Mount Rushmore, but they are just two of the fascinating facts we learned when we visited.
The area was in dire need of a boost and the locals decided a tourist attraction was needed. When the gold rush had died down the land was no longer of any value and the settlers there where finding it hard to make ends meet, a well known sculpter was asked if he would consider taking on the mammoth task. When the subjects where chosen for the sculpture by a child from a local school who submited his sugestion and the Us government found out they where to be huge likenesses of former presidents they gladly coughed up the $98 million it took to carve the huge piece.

The sculptor Gutzon Borglum and 400 men took 14 years to finish the faces and they aren't actually finished. Work only stopped when Gutzons health declined and when he went to hospital for minor surgery a freak complication resulted in his death. Although his son took over work on the sculpture he only did some minor touches, stating that his fathers work ethic was that a sculpture was forever a work in progress and would never really be "finished".

As for the attorney. Mr Charles E Rushmore.
Sent to the area to check land register papers, he asked a local what the rock formation to the north of his property was called, as all the ranges had names. "Never called it nothin, maybe from now on we should call it Rushmore!" was his reply...

For those that dont know the four presidents faces featured on Mount Rushmore are :-

George Washington, the first US President.
Thomas Jefferson, the man responsible for the first ice cream recipe.
Abraham Lincoln, well known Vampire killer,
and Davie Crocket......wait, no, sorry, Theodore Rooservelt, namesake of the Teddy Bear.
Well he looks like Davie Crocket to me...


Them guys...

How it was meant to look.

Thats us it is.

Gutzon Borglum

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