Some Relief: Rushmore to Be Dedicated at Last

Fifty years ago, a man carved a mountain in South Dakota. His vision was to create a “Shrine to Democracy,” and for that purpose he chose the faces of four Presidents, portraying them as quiet visionaries peering across mountain and plain.

Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by design, he situated his sculpture in the Black Hills, a compact microcosm of the frontier, which, during the brief span of his subjects’ lives, forged a nation different from most societies the world had seen before.

The sculpture, of course, is the massive granite carving on Mt. Rushmore. And this week, the National Park Service, which administers it as the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, will celebrate the relief’s 50th anniversary.

Fourth of July at Mt. Rushmore is always busy. But this year’s schedule of special events promises to make things unusually inspiring and unusually crowded.

Actually, the memorial will be closed to the public much of Wednesday, when President Bush is scheduled to belatedly dedicate it at a celebrity-studded ceremony. (The original planned dedication was interrupted by Pearl Harbor and the start of World War II.) The memorial is scheduled to reopen late that afternoon.

Independence Day festivities will begin with an early morning (6-7 a.m.) flag-raising, choral music and speakers.

Plans were still fluid as of this writing, but a Park Service spokesman said that throughout the day there would be appearances by fife and drum corps, a barbershop quartet and the usual interpretive films and ranger-guided tours. The evening program will include a performance by the 50-member I Love America Chorus, with seating on a first-come, first-served basis.

The carving on Mt. Rushmore is the largest sculpture in the world, but its appeal lies in far more than its size. Since it was completed in 1941, it has become one of the nation’s most prized monuments, sharing the stature of such national treasures as the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

Each year, 2 million visitors come to Mr. Rushmore to view a short filmstrip about its carving, take a half-hour, ranger-guided tour of the artist’s studio, and look up at the famous faces against a backdrop of mountain-blue sky and scattered white clouds. In the evening, hundreds of people watch from the memorial’s 1,300-seat amphitheater as the sculpture is illuminated during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The carving was the masterwork of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who, with about two dozen workers, spent the last 14 years of his life carving it with jackhammers, wedges and dynamite.

Originally, state officials conceived of the project as a means of attracting tourists. But while the sculpture has accomplished that goal admirably, Borglum quickly turned it into something more than a tourist magnet.

Borglum, who has been described as fervently patriotic, chose the four subjects for his carving based on what he saw as their contributions to the growth of the nation. Washington and Lincoln were obvious choices. Jefferson earned his place because he’d written the Declaration of Independence. In addition, he was the President who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase--a land acquisition that, coincidentally, included the land now occupied by Mt. Rushmore, as well as much of the rest of the West.

The fourth President, Theodore Roosevelt, was the least obvious choice. Borglum apparently picked him because of his role in constructing the Panama Canal and because he represented the energy and rugged individualism bred into this nation by the frontier.

Robert Christon of Denver was one of the workers who helped carve the memorial, working on it for the last four years of the project. In a recent telephone interview from his home, Christon described Borglum as “a real artist” and hard worker, who spent part of each day supervising on the mountain, as well as working to promote the project and secure financing--an amazing feat, since the carving was done during the tight-money era of the Great Depression.

During the final years of the project, Christon says the workers had a strong understanding of the import of what they were doing. “Most everyone felt quite a sense of responsibility,” he said, “and were proud of it.”

“One of the big things I think about now,” he added, “is that it would be impossible to build it today.”

In the first place, he said, it would probably be difficult to get a permit for such a project. In addition, he speculated that the cost today would be astronomical.

Borglum completed the entire 14-year project on a budget of slightly less than $990,000.

“That was a really efficiently run outfit,” Christon said. “Money was hard to get and they made it all count. And nobody got seriously injured on the job, so they didn’t shortchange anybody on safety.”

Unfortunately, Borglum did not live to see the work completed. He died suddenly at the age of 73, in the spring of 1941.

His son Lincoln, who had been helping with the project, took over the job of supervising its completion, working from scale models his father had made in a studio at the base of the mountain. On Oct. 31, 1941, his crews completed their work, leaving the carving as it remains today.

Pearl Harbor and the start of World War II came less than two months later. The four faces on Mt. Rushmore were only a part of Borglum’s original dream. He’d wanted to carve the figures to the waist, and had also wanted to build an 800-step Grand Stairway to a Hall of Records carved into the mountain behind the sculpture. In this hall, which was conceived before the National Archives were constructed, Borglum hoped to house the originals of such treasured items as the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and busts of two dozen prominent Americans.

Unfortunately, it will cost far more than Borglum’s initial $990,000 to maintain the sculpture and continue to interpret it for the public. A trust fund has been established for the purpose--which includes repair of hundreds of cracks that are beginning to appear on the faces. A three-year fund-raising target of $40 million has been set, more than 40 times larger than Borglum’s original budget.

Trust fund leaders are also hoping to complete some version of the Hall of Records, which Borglum abandoned for lack of funding after cutting a 68-foot-deep cavern 14 feet wide by 20 feet high.

GUIDEBOOK

Mt. Rushmore

The memorial: Mt. Rushmore is in the Black Hills, three miles southwest of Keystone, S.D. Best viewing of the sculpture is from the visitor center, open daily 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. during the summer. Admission is free. No camping or picknicking, but there is a restaurant and miscellaneous food concessions.

Tours of Borglum’s studio leave hourly, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily during summer.

The evening program is presented every summer evening at 9 p.m. It climaxes at 9:30, when the sculpture is illuminated by floodlights as “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played. Lights are shut off at 10:30.

For more information: About the memorial, contact: Mt. Rushmore Memorial Park Services, Keystone, S.D. 57771, (605) 574-2523.

About the region, contact: Keystone Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 653, Keystone, S.D. 57751, (800) 843-1300, Ext. 939 (locally 605-666-4896).

About neighboring towns, contact: (800) 992-9818 (Custer), (605) 578-1876 (Deadwood/Lead) or (605) 343-1744 (Rapid City).