Attraction: Mt. Rushmore National Memorial
The four colossal sculptures at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, are carved out of Mount Rushmore’s granite face in the Black Hills of Keystone, South Dakota. The design for the sculpture was sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s, and he oversaw the project’s execution from 1927 to 1941, with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum. One of the highlights of the sculpture was the 60-foot-tall (18 m) sculptures of the nation’s four most prominent presidents, modeled after the inspiration of Mount Rushmore’s four massive heads of presidents George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). The memorial park covers 1,278 acres (2.00 sq mi; 5.17 km2) and the actual mountain has an elevation of 5,725 feet (1 with an elevation of 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.
The Black Hills of South Dakota in the US State of South Dakota are largely a land of incredible natural beauty, thanks to the high concentration of world-renowned individuals featured on carved rocks within the hills. His initial concept was to carve the Needles, but the idea was abandoned after Borglum discovered the granite was of poor quality and was met with fierce opposition from the Lakota (or Sioux), who regard the Black Hills as a sacred location; this initial idea was put in the Great Sioux Reservation. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the United States broke up the territory into various statehoods. Although this mountain is considered sacred to the Lakota Sioux, Six Grandfathers is their nickname for it.
