Mount Rushmore National Memorial...

Mount Rushmore is one of those places where once you leave, you are always drawn back. The last time we were here was while we were on our Empty Nest Escape of 2009.

For those unaware, Mount Rushmore National Memorial features the 60-foot faces of four American presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Carved first and seen first, George Washington greeted us and we responded with audible "Wows".
The Memorial is host to just over two million visitors a year from across the country and around the world. They come to marvel at the majestic beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota and to learn about the birth, growth, development, and the preservation of our country. Over the decades, Mount Rushmore has grown in fame as a symbol of America... A symbol of freedom and hope for people from all cultures and backgrounds.
While somber and reflective, it is also fun. This is my favorite 'Denise-style' photo so far!

We traversed the Presidental Trail to begin our day with a Ranger Talk.
Before doing anything else, we needed to learn all we could about Mount Rushmore's creator and his artistic process. To do just that, our morning's destination was the very informative Sculptor's Studio, the historic on-site workspace where sculptor Gutzon Borglum worked and refined his designs from 1939 to 1941.
The building itself houses the ninth, and final, original 1/12th-scale plaster model of Mount Rushmore, which represents the monument at one-twelfth the size of the actual carved faces. In 1939, this structure was built as a second on-site studio for Gutzon. Unique plaster models and worker tools related to the sculpting processes are displayed in this studio. But we were there for the studio talk by Ranger Steve on the thrilling and complicated mountain carving process.
Built between October 4, 1927 - October 31, 1941, Mount Rushmore is a project of colossal proportion, colossal ambition and colossal achievement. It involved the efforts of nearly 400 men and women. The duties involved varied greatly from the call boy to drillers to the blacksmith to the housekeepers. Some of the workers at Mount Rushmore were interviewed, and were asked, "What is it you do here?" One of the workers responded and said, "I run a jackhammer." Another worker responded to the same question, " I earn $8.00 a day." However, a third worker said, "I am helping to create a memorial." The third worker had an idea of what they were trying to accomplish.
The workers had to endure conditions that varied from blazing hot to bitter cold and windy. Each day they climbed 700 stairs to the top of the mountain to punch-in on the time clock. Then 3/8 inch thick steel cables lowered them over the front of the 500 foot face of the mountain in a "bosun chair". Some of the workers admitted being uneasy with heights, but during the Depression, any job was a good job. The work was exciting, but dangerous. 90% of the mountain was carved using dynamite . The powdermen would cut and set charges of dynamite of specific sizes to remove precise amounts of rock. During the 14 years of construction not one fatality occurred.

My lingering question was still trying to answer "How?" Building all the necessary infrastructure on and around the mountain constituted a major project in and of itself. But when the workers got into their harnesses, how would they know where to direct their jackhammers into the rock? To guide them, Borglum adapted a mechanical technique used by ancient Greeks to copy statues, a “pointing machine” that could “measure specific points on a sculpture relative to a reference point,” making a three-dimensional shape transferable from one sculpture to another.
Borglum designed a large-scale pointing machine that could be installed atop the mountain and positioned to show workers where and how deep to drill. Though the system worked well, the team could only make progress so fast: after fourteen years, Mount Rushmore remained incomplete when Borglum’s death and World War II put a stop to it altogether. His son Lincoln had finished it to the Memorial we see today.
Ranger Steve shared some really amazing photos of the construction process and I asked him who had taken the pictures. At the Visitors Center I found my answer. Lincoln and his wife Louella were both very interested in cameras and film types. Both contributed to the Memorial's deeper story of the Carving Era. Lincoln's images and films depict the day to day processes, the people and their work. While not as numerous, Louella's images assist in telling the story of Lincoln himself. Louella gives us Lincoln as seen in film over the faces, operating equipment, discussing tasks with workers, examining and directing beside the Master Sculptor, his father. So dang cool.
After exploring the grounds, learning all we can, we stopped for coffee in a very special setting.
I worked the entire time on my Junior Ranger Badge, something our sons earned on our very first trip to Mount Rushmore in 1998.
Ranger Steve checked over my work and had me recite the Junior Ranger oath. "As a National Park Junior Ranger, I pledge to do my best to protect and preserve our National Parks, respect all plants and animals, and share what I have learned with others."
It may seem silly to work to become a Jr. Ranger but the truth is, the activities that are required help you look deeper at the Park. I loved this activity.
Lastly, sculptor Gutzon Borglum said in his introduction for the dedication of Jefferson's image, to FDR, "I want you, Mr. President, to dedicate this memorial as a Shrine to Democracy; to call upon the people of the earth for one hundred thousand years to come to read the thought and to see what manner of men struggled here to establish self-determined government in the western world. With the prayer that it shall not perish from the earth." Sums it up.
And just for fun, I'm sharing the postcard I had made from that previously mentioned 2009 trip. What memories!
Home for the next two nights is in the darling little town of Medora, North Dakota. For those curious, we have traveled across 2,318 miles of America since leaving Tahoe on August 27th.

"Road trips are the equivalent of human wings.
Ask me to go on one, anywhere.
We’ll stop in every small town and learn the history,
feel the ground and capture the spirit.
Then we’ll turn it into our own story
that will live inside our history to carry with us always.
Because stories are more important than things."
-Victoria Erickson

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