The carved presidential faces on Mount Rushmore National Memorial are 60 feet tall.
The monument in South Dakota depicts George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum selected them to represent the nation’s founding, expansion, development, and preservation. Construction began in 1927 and continued until 1941, with help from about 400 workers.
The project used dynamite and a drilling technique called honeycombing to remove granite before workers finished the surfaces by hand. The original plan called for each president to be shown from the head to the waist, but funding ended the work before that could happen. Only Washington’s sculpture includes detail below the chin. The memorial stands on land taken from the Sioux Nation in the Black Hills.