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| Mount Rushmore, South Dakota (Image by pamdavila from Pixabay ) |
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
Nestled in the black hills of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore National Memorial Consists of four colossal portraits of US Presidents carved out of a cliff face, A work of art that is the most American of all American Wonders.
It was the sculptor and painter Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) who came up with the concept of a powerful, everlasting national monument. He wanted his sculpture to embody the principles and ideals of the American nation. Colossal portrait heads of four great US presidents fit his vision perfectly.
The impetus for the monument was a serendipitous meeting of minds. Doane Robinson, the state historian of south Dakota, wanted a tourist attraction to draw visitors to the Black Hills region. In 1923, he invited Borglum, who was at the time well-known for his monumental historical works, to design a gigantic sculpture depicting four important American Presidents: George Washington, Father of the Country; Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence; Abraham Lincoln, who kept the country from being divided during the Civil War; and Theodore Roosevelt, builder of the Panama Canal and protector of thousands of acres of wilderness. Borglum chose the site of Mount Rushmore and began chiseling out the portraits on 10 August 1927.
