Mount Rushmore is the South Dakota landmark featuring the carved heads of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln.
The memorial is carved into Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum directed the project, which began in 1927 and continued until 1941. The four presidents were selected to represent the nation’s founding, growth, development, and preservation, although the interpretation reflects the era in which the memorial was created.
Workers used dynamite to remove much of the granite, followed by pneumatic tools and careful finishing. The original plan included larger portions of the figures, but funding and Borglum’s death prevented completion beyond the heads and upper portions.
Mount Rushmore is also part of a complicated regional history. The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota, and the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie recognized them as part of their territory. The monument should therefore be understood both as a national memorial and within the history of contested Indigenous land.