Mount Rushmore (Six Grandfathers) before construction,
c. 1905.

On October 4, 1927, sculpting began on the face of Mount
Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota.

It would take another 12 years for the granite images of four
of America’s most revered presidents—George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt
to be completed.

The monument was the brainchild of a South Dakota historian
named Doane Robinson, who was looking for a way to attract
more tourists to his state.

American sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum
(1867 – 1941)