mountain in 1925 South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson had invited him Robinson wanted more tourists to visit the state He thought sculpting a rock formation would attract visitors Borglum had experience carving mountains He had recently designed a memorial at Georgia's Stone Mountain The project has become controversial It honors three figures from the Confederacy the group of states that tried to break away from the United States in the 1860s to keep the practice of slavery The memorial and Borglum were linked with the Ku Klux Klan KKK a PERSPECTIVES SACRED LAND Mount Rushmore is on land the Lakota Sioux consider sacred The US government had promised them this land in the 1868 Treaty of Laramie In 1874 miners discovered gold there Three years later the US government broke its promise It reclaimed the land racist and anti Semitic group Borglum himself held anti Semitic views Some historians believe he joined the KKK to get funding for the
For millions of years before Borglum arrived in South Dakota the rock formation that would later become Mount Rushmore had been shaped by nature Stone Mountain project Others think he joined the group for political reasons Borglum was one of the world's only artists with large scale stone carving experience He accepted Robinson's invitation and traveled to South Dakota to investigate the area The Native American Lakota
people have lived in South Dakota's Black Hills for many generations To them this area is sacred ROBINSON'S IDEA The land Borglum visited did not have any roads Borglum and Robinson rode on horses to explore the mountains As they rode Borglum studied the rock formations carefully How did sunlight strike them Would the rock be strong enough to sculpt Did large cracks ruin the clean surfaces When Mount Rushmore came into view Borglum grew excited The mountain faced southeast That provided good light for most of the day The rock was a fine solid granite It could be sculpted It stood 500 feet 152 m taller than the surrounding land That would make a carving easy to see from far away Originally Robinson had wanted the carvings to reflect the area's history He imagined sculptures of Lakota Sioux chief Red Cloud Nearby would be the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
Their Shoshone guide Sacagawea would have a spot too When Borglum saw Mount Rushmore he had a different idea THE PROJECT MOVES FORWARD Borglum began WHOM TO SCULPT Borglum chose George Washington for his skills as a leader in the American Revolutionary War 1775 1783 and for his work as the nation's first president Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and helped double the size of the nation Abraham Lincoln had preserved the Union and ended slavery during the American Civil War 1861 1865 Theodore Roosevelt's leadership led to the building of the Panama Canal and helped bring the United States into the 1900s sketching his ideas for the sculpture He wanted to honor presidents who had played important roles in US history He chose George Washington Thomas Jefferson Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt Borglum shared his ideas with Robinson He agreed to the change of plans
