The Mt. Rushmore we see today is hardly the monument originally planned. Sixty years ago a sculptor was sought who could carve the Needles, not Rushmore. As planned, the Needles would become great statues of men like Fremont or Lewis and Clark. When sculptor Gutzon Borglum arrived to view the Needles, he had a different inspiration. Borglum wanted to choose the granite spires and there sculpt statues of Washington and Lincoln.
Opposition sprang up to those early designs. "Man makes statues," editorialized one South Dakota newspaper, "but God made the Needles. Let them alone."
Borglum checked out other Monument sites, including Harney Peak. But when he saw the "sugarloaf" dome of Mt. Rushmore, Borglum knew he'd found his mountain. The impulsive Borglum also gazed on Old Baldy, a neighboring granite summit. There, he explained, was the perfect place to carve Teddy Roosevelt on horseback.
But his concentration was soon back on Rushmore. Out of its rock wall Borglum would carve great faces of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. Only later did he plan the fourth face of his friend, Teddy Roosevelt.
Controversy surrounded the fourth face. Roosevelt had been dead only a few years, and some wanted more time for perspective on his presidency. In a 1969 editorial for the Los Angles Herald-Examiner, Warren Morrell advanced an interesting theory: "Its true ," wrote Morrell, "that Borglum greatly admired the Rough Rider. But look at a picture of Borglum. Put pince-nez glasses on Borglum and you have a striking resemblance to Roosevelt. So in addition the Rough Rider, you also have Borglum up there. I don't fault him for what some might consider immodesty. I like to see Roosevelt and Borglum up there and realize I'm not seeing double."
Mt. Rushmore went through nine design changes. One example is Jefferson, originally carved on the opposite side of Washington. Faulty rock forced Borglum to literally blast the face of Jefferson off the mountain, and relocate the face where we see it today.
10/01/03