Mount Rushmore monument still draws tourist crowds at 75
South Dakota celebrates Mount Rushmore’s 75th anniversary.
“I could fit into George Washington’s nose.” The 10-year-old next to me peers through his binoculars, slowly examining the four granite profiles looming above. “The sculpted faces measure about 18 metres,” a National Park Service ranger explains to us. “And the eyes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are more than three metres wide.” Cue the youngster’s inevitable response: “Wow!”
Way above the ponderosa pines, the mountain stands out against a deep blue sky. Although familiar from films and posters, the reality of Mount Rushmore is awe-inspiring. I can only echo the boy’s reaction. And this year, the national memorial celebrates its 75th anniversary. But why was this massive cliff carving conceived in the Black Hills of South Dakota? In the 1920s, the aim was to create a tourist attraction in an unspoilt region virtually in the middle of nowhere. The thinking was: “If you carve it, they will come.” They did, and still do. About three million visitors turn up every year to see what is grandiosely labelled the Shrine of Democracy.
You can see the presidential heads from Route 244, the road that winds up the ridge from the streamside hamlet of Keystone. Some visitors pull off, take a selfie and drive on. But this extraordinary work of art deserves more time and I join a ranger-led walk along the Presidential Trail to the foot of the cliff. As well as facts about stone cutting and local geology, our guide provides an easy refresher lesson in US history. Washington was the first, and only, president to be unanimously elected by the Electoral College; at the stroke of a pen, Jefferson doubled the size of the US. “The 1803 Louisiana Purchase of territory from France included the ground we are standing on today,” the ranger points out. Lincoln, of course, freed slaves and preserved the Union, while Roosevelt, the president nicknamed “Teddy”, was the driving force behind the nation’s preservation of natural resources, from forests and wildlife refuges to national parks and even monuments.
As we walk the trail, the ranger tells us to watch, look and listen for wildlife such as mountain goats capering on ledges; the flash of yellow feathers that is the western tanager; marmots scuttling in the forest undergrowth. “And don’t miss the film and museum in the visitor centre,” he suggests at the end, with a parting wave. The film, in fact, provides a helicopter close-up of the faces, from Roosevelt’s pince-nez to Lincoln’s wrinkles and what looks like five-o’clock shadow on Washington’s chin. Exhibits give the low-down on the enormous venture, from the hands-on workers to the creative force behind it, Gutzon Borglum, an American sculptor who trained in Paris, where he counted Rodin among his friends. On his CV were important commissions such as the massive bust of Lincoln that stands in the Capitol Building in Washington DC.
Then came the Confederate Army Memorial on Stone Mountain, near Atlanta. Although Borglum did not finish that job — the artist and client parted company in 1925 — the work served as a test run for Mount Rushmore, to which he dedicated 14 years. Historic photographs track the progress as about 450,000 tonnes of granite were shifted by 400 labourers. Many of the men were hard rock miners, who understood explosives and could blast to within centimetres of the finished faces. For the final detail, jackhammers and chisels were used. Perched on seats that dangled from ropes precariously high above the ground, the men had neither harnesses nor breathing protection.
In the surrounding woods is the Sculptor’s Studio, housing Borglum’s original 12th-scale model of the presidential quartet. On this prototype there are buttons on Washington’s great coat and Lincoln’s hand reaches up to his collar. But this is not what I see through the studio window. Before he could complete the full torsos, the money ran out, the project was declared finished, and the monument opened to the public in 1941.
If Mount Rushmore is a rootin’ tootin’ celebration of US history, another side of the American story is commemorated just 20 minutes away. The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux, so it is fitting that a gigantic equestrian statue of their leader, Crazy Horse, is slowly emerging from the granite of Thunderhead Mountain. “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes also.” In 1939, that was how Chief Henry Standing Bear invited Korczak Ziolkowski to design this American Indian memorial. Having worked at Mount Rushmore, the sculptor knew all about blasting rock. But the pace has been slow, with funding from private donations rather than government coffers. The first detonation was in 1948; the chief’s head, 26m high, was finished 50 years later.
All such details are explained at the site’s Indian Museum of North America, where I study models and plans, then view work still in progress. But these galleries are also dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of all of North America’s tribes. Reflecting the past are artefacts, such as elaborately decorated moccasins, beads used for trading and a century-old Plains Indian saddle. Bang up to date are works by local artisans, including woven rugs, paintings and even a 21st-century tepee.
Best of all is the experience of driving up the mountain to come face-to-face with Crazy Horse himself. Towering above me is the visage of the warrior who, in 1876, ensured that the Battle of Little Bighorn was indeed Custer’s Last Stand. I follow the chief’s gaze over hills, forests and meadows that were once tribal lands. When eventually finished, this colossal depiction of man and horse should be the world’s largest sculpture. It will dwarf Mount Rushmore.
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WINDS AND WHISTLES
To the southeast of Crazy Horse Memorial is Custer State Park, encompassing quiet back roads, tortured rock formations, calm lakes, wide-open grasslands, and wildlife galore.
At the State Game Lodge, the “summer White House” during Calvin Coolidge’s presidency, I wake at 7am to the sound of grunting; below my guestroom window, dozens of bison are breakfasting on the lush lawns. “The bison are free to roam,” the receptionist later tells me, “and once a week, they come and mow the grass.”
A good way to meet the wild locals is to follow the well-named Wildlife Loop Road via gorges, steep switchbacks and tunnels, including Tunnel 3, through which I look straight to the presidents on Mount Rushmore.
Another natural wonder is only 40km further south. Wind Cave is billed as the world’s largest cavern system and the first to be designated a national park. The subterranean maze is no place for the claustrophobic: instead of spacious galleries, there are narrow tunnels.
Its name dates from 1881, when the Bingham brothers heard a loud whistling in the empty prairie. They traced the sound to a small gap in the rock, where wind was blowing out of a hole. Returning a few days later, they discovered air was being sucked back into the opening; it was as if the cave itself were breathing.
TELEGRAPH MEDIA GROUP
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