Mount Rushmore in South Dakota - rock with a 18 meter high faces of four US presidents

The 18-meter faces of four American presidents look at the vertical granite rock: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

A local historian and publicist, Doane Robinson, came up with the idea of ​​a mountain-monument. He thought that this eye-catching project would attract tourists to the beautiful Black Hills mountains. In 1924 he interested Gutzon Borglum in his intention and it was decided to create a "temple of democracy". Borglum intended to carve them all the way to the waist, and since he never finished the work, he should be glad that he started from the top.

Borglum, led a team of local workers and miners, who extracted the outlines of big heads from the rock by blowing up parts of the mountain with dynamite, and then shaped the rock with a drill, hammer and chisel , hanging down on the swinging platforms.

The main sculptor was helped by his son and over 400 other workers who removed a total of about 450,000 tons of stone from the mountainside during construction.

The entire relief is visible from a distance of 100 km.

Due to the bad weather and conflicts in the management, work continued to be stopped, and finally the heads of the presidents were unveiled: Washington in 1930, Jefferson in 1936, Lincoln in 1937 and Roosevelt in 1939.

Initially, Thomas Jefferson was sculpted to the right of George Washington. However, after 18 months it was decided to change it, so Jefferson's face was blown up and sculpted on the other side of Washington.

The mountain took its name from the name of Charles E. Rushmore, a lawyer who, having arrived in South Dakota for work, found this mountain. Asking residents about her name, he learned that there was no name, and then stated that "From now on we will call it Mount Rushmore."

Maintenance of the work requires annual care, monitoring, cleaning and sealing of cracks, these works are undertaken by trained mountain climbers. However, this will not stop natural erosion. It is estimated that due to erosion, about 3 cm in volume of the mountain will be lost within 10,000 years.

Over 3 million tourists visit Mount Rushmore annually.