faces on the mountain Visitors to a remote part of South Dakota can see an amazing sight In the middle of the rocks and trees stands a huge mountain Staring from the side of that mountain are four familiar faces They are the faces of four great presidents of the United States of America What are American presidents doing on the side of a mountain How did they get there And how did this place become one of the most powerful symbols in the nation The answers go back almost one hundred years to some people who had a very big idea 4
come to south dakota In 1923 a man named Doane Robinson was the state historian of South Dakota South Dakota was a beautiful place However it was very far away from most cities South Dakota was a difficult place to travel to Because of these facts hardly anyone came to visit the state 6
Robinson thought that if there was something amazing to see in South Dakota more people would come to visit He got the idea to carve giant statues of frontier heroes into a mountain range called the Black Hills These mountains had many large bare rock faces They were the perfect place to carve large statues Robinson shared his idea with everyone he knew One of the people he told was U S Senator Peter Norbeck Norbeck liked Robinson’s idea He told many government officials about Robinson’s ideas Soon there was enough interest for the project to go ahead Doane Robinson Peter Norbeck 7
