Mount Rushmore National Memorial

Located: in South Dakota, United States

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, colossal sculpture in the Black Hills of southwestern South Dakota

Huge representations of the heads of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, each about 60 feet (18 meters) tall, are carved in granite on the southeast side of Mount Rushmore. The mountain itself, at an elevation of 5,725 feet (1,745 meters), was named in 1885 for Charles E. Rushmore, a New York lawyer.

The memorial, which covers 2 square miles (5 square km), was designated in 1925 and dedicated in 1927. The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) assumed administration of the site in 1933.

Creation of The Sculpture:

The American sculptor Gutzon Borglum was hired to design and execute the project, chose Mount Rushmore with its solid granite rock face. Borglum also proposed that the four heads in the sculpture symbolize the first 150 years of the United States:

Washington to represent the country’s founding; Jefferson, its expansion across the continent; Roosevelt, its development domestically and as a global power; and Lincoln, its preservation through the ordeal of civil war.

The Mount Rushmore sculpture ensemble quickly became one of the United States’ great iconic images. The memorial is now among the most heavily visited NPS properties and is one of the top tourist attractions in the country.