Did You Know The Presidents On Mount Rushmore Were Supposed To Have Bodies, Too?

As millions of tourists flock to the Black Hills in South Dakota to see the iconic four American presidents carved into Mount Rushmore, many are unaware that these massive sculptures were to be more than just their heads. Or that a fifth head featuring Susan B. Anthony had to be abandoned.

American sculptor Gutzon Borglum also envisioned his humungous creation with full torsos of the presidents and a 120-foot-high tablet detailing 150 years of history of the United States.

Turns out, the vision was far more grandiose that what was possible to accomplish. Just their heads took 14 years and, if you’ll pardon the pun, a monumental effort.

Borglum faced several setbacks that resulted in his sculptures ultimately being only a small percentage of their original proposed size and being declared “finished,” when in fact they were still incomplete. 

Borglum also had to abandon his dream of the tablet.   

The Vision

In 1923, South Dakota historian Doane Robinson first proposed his dream of a massive series of sculptures in the Black Hills. His intent was to honor America’s history and to help promote tourism in the region. 

Robinson initially wanted to sculpt the likenesses of Western heroes such as Oglala Lakota leaders Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, explorers Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea, John C. Fremont and Buffalo Bill Cody into the nearby granite pinnacles known as The Needles.

Borglum rejected Robinson's original plan of depicting pioneers from the Old West. Instead, he decided on four American presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. 

Each president was chosen to represent an American value, according to the National Park Service. Washington represented the birth of the United States, Jefferson our growth, Roosevelt the development of the United States and Lincoln was to represent the preservation of the Union.

The Needles

Originally, Robinson wanted the sculptures carved into the 150-meter-high granite pillars of The Needles in Custer Park. However, the granite rock was deemed to be too weathered to carve into. Borglum also argued that they would look like “misplaced totem poles.”

After much scouting in the region, he chose Mount Rushmore partly because it faced southeast and enjoyed maximum exposure to sunlight.

He reportedly said upon seeing the granite face of the mountain that, "America will march along that skyline.”

The Missing Bodies 

On Oct. 4, 1927, the carving began. 

Borglum closely supervised crews of sculptors and miners as they rappelled down the cliffs and blasted away the granite. They first used dynamite, and then jackhammers and chisels for the finer work. 

Each president was originally to be depicted from head to waist. However, the rock proved to be less reliable than at first thought and money became severely restricted. 

Washington was carved first and within three years, his likeness officially unveiled on the Fourth of July in 1930.

Workers began carving Jefferson next to Washington’s right shoulder but discovered that the granite was insufficiently stable. Borglum ordered the partially formed face to be blasted off the mountain and they started over on the opposite side of Washington.

Plans continued to be adjusted and abandoned according to the suitability of the rock. Lincoln’s head was moved from its original position and placed where Borglum had intended to carve his massive tablet celebrating 150 years of America. 

In 1936, Jefferson’s sculpture was dedicated, with President Franklin Roosevelt in attendance. Roosevelt’s head was dedicated in July 1939, but work was not over. 

The plan still called for the presidents to be shown all the way down to their waists. Borglum also began excavating a deep vault in the mountain for an envisioned “Hall of Records” to explain the monument to future archaeologists and to replace his carved tablet. 

The project was funded through a combination of federal, state and private sources. As money became limited with World War II looming on the horizon, Borglum had to scale back the scope of Mount Rushmore, leaving certain elements incomplete.

Borglum spent much of the last two years of the project traveling and working to secure more money. While he was away his son, Lincoln Borglum, supervised the work on Mount Rushmore. 

In March 1941, as a final dedication was being planned, Gutzon Borglum unexpectedly died of a heart attack. This led to the end of the work on the mountain. 

On Oct. 31, 1941, Mount Rushmore National Memorial was declared a completed project although the full torsos were not there. Only Washington's sculpture includes any detail below chin level.

The unfinished sculptures had been completed over the course of 14 years with more than 400 workers clearing away 450,000 tons of rock. 

By the way, those 14 years of work and huge effort cost less than $1 million total, $989,992.32. That’s more than $22 million today, according to the Consumer Price Index inflation calculator. However, a similar project started now would likely cost many times that $22 million.

The Hidden Room

Two years before he died, Borglum said, "You may as well drop a letter into the world’s postal service without an address or signature as to send that carved mountain into history without identification."

Originally, he had planned on placing an inscription, the Entablature, next to his full-bodied presidents. It was to be about 80 feet by 120 feet in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase and would have described the nine most important events in U.S. history from 1776 to 1906.

According to the National Park Service, this plan failed for two critical reasons. 

First, the text could not be made large enough to read at such a great distance. Also, after relocating the Jefferson head, that section of the mountain that was set aside for the tablet was needed for the Lincoln head. Once again, Borglum pivoted.

Borglum planned to create a large room within the mountain to replace his carved tablet. This chamber would hold the documents and artifacts that he said were most central to American democratic history. The proposed 80-by-100-foot room was to be drilled into the north wall of the small canyon behind the faces. 

Between July 1938 and July 1939, work was done on the construction of the hall and a 70-foot tunnel blasted successfully into the mountain. In 1939, Congress issued a directive that construction should only be done on the faces and the work on the hidden room was stopped.  

Although Borglum’s Hall of Records had to be abandoned, his dream remained. 

On Aug. 9, 1998, a repository of records was placed in the floor of the hall entry. This repository, according to the NPS, consists of a teakwood box inside a titanium vault that’s covered by a granite capstone. Etched on the capstone is the following quote by Gutzon Borglum:

"... let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can, the words of our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of men they were. Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and rain alone shall wear them away."

Wyoming Considers Its Own Monument

The South Dakota Tourism Department reports that historian Robinson’s audacious plan to bring tourism to the Black Hills worked, although the sculptures had changed many times over the years from the original plans.  

Today, Mount Rushmore is visited by nearly 3 million people a year who flock to see the famous faces. 

This large surge of visitors is what prompted a Wyoming legislator to introduce a bill to build a Mount Rushmore-like monument in the Cowboy State.

Veteran Wyoming state Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, told Cowboy State Daily that his bill to build a "Monument to America" in Wyoming would create a monument "similar in size and scope to Mount Rushmore" and feature important historical American figures.

He proposes a modest first step, setting aside $40,000 to fund a task force. The task force would be charged with looking into how, when and where such a monument could be built. 

The end vision is ambitious. 

“The monument to America shall be similar in size and scope to the Mount Rushmore national monument and shall feature important historical American figures as recommended by the task force including Native American leaders,” according to the bill’s text. 

The goal is for the task force to have a recommendation for development for the monument ready for the governor’s office and key legislative committees no later than July 24, 2026. 

That could launch the project at roughly the same time as the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 2026.

Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.