Let's carve some men in a mountain.

June 3, 2012

Today I learned about Mount Rushmore.  I've never been there, and I can't say I have an overwhelming urge to go there (unlike the Hoover Dam.)

I was watching "Pawn Stars" today and a guy brought i a solid silver bas-relief plaque of Mount Rushmore that he wanted to sell for $1000.  (I think they gave him $900.)  Rick said (paraphrased,) "they commemorated Washington because he was the first president. Jefferson because he wrote all our laws.  Lincoln because he got the ball rolling on equality and Roosevelt because he made our country an international powerhouse."

Or from the National Park's Service website:

"The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt." - Gutzon Borglum.

• Gutzon Borglum was the man who carved it, along with his son Lincoln.
• Gutzon had also been involved in carving Stone Mountain in Georgia. 
• At one point Congress wanted to add Susan B. Anthony was going to be added, but finding the money for it got in the way. (Typical.)
• No one died during the work. (Unlike the Hoover Dam.)
• It's named after Charles E. Rushmore, a New York attorney who was involved in mining claims in the late 1800s.
• It is in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where the ugliest gold comes from. 
• They were supposed to be carved from head to waist but they ran out of money. 
• The statue is controversial because the land was seized (typical) from Native Americans.
• It is not typically cleaned of lichens, but a guy named Alfred Karcher GmbH did it for free in 2005.  He was a pressure washer manufacturer, so this was probably good press about his pressure washers. 
• The cost of the carving was approximately One Million Dollars. in 1927-1941 dollars.
• It was NOT carved to hide the City of Gold (National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets) but it would have been way cooler if it had.

and - according to "Pawn Stars" they'd never be able to build it today because environmentalists would get in the way.