Mount Rushmore

[Shonnon]

Facial Finishing

Photograph from Rise Studio/National Geographic

To transfer the facial dimensions from Borglum's models to the mountain—how deep eyes should be set, where a nose would be—workers used red paint. An inch (2.5 centimeters) on the model equaled a foot (0.3 meter) on the mountain. There's still a bit of crimson under Lincoln's nostrils today.

February 16, 2013

[Shonnon]

Moveable Houses

Photograph by Edwin L. Wisherd, National Geographic

Most of the buildings on the mountain were winch houses. Each had about five or six winches that would raise or lower workers.

Most of the winch houses also had 5-foot-high (1.5-meter-high) models of the faces inside so workers could envision what they were carving. "Face-to-face with granite all day long, they might not be able to see the big picture," says Mount Rushmore historian Amy Bracewell.

February 16, 2013

[Shonnon]

Dangerous Jobs

Photograph from Rapid City Chamber of Commerce/National Geographic

No special training was required to be on the monument-building team, but fortitude was. It was dangerous work. "They used the men who were willing to do it," says Bracewell.

With the bulk of the carving happening during the Great Depression, unemployed local tin and feldspar miners, along with ranchers and farmers, made up most of the workers' ranks.

February 16, 2013


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/pictures/130216-presidents-day-mount-rushmore-photography-pictures-south-dakota/#/mount-rushmore-construction-climbing_64396_600x450.jpg