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Mount Rushmore Facts

Mount Rushmore Facts
Carved from the granite face of Mount Rushmore is a sculpture of the heads of four previous presidents. It was carved by a Danish-American sculpture and his son, on the face of a mountain near Keystone, South Dakota in the U.S. It's known as Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Construction began in 1927, and was finished in 1941. Because of the lack of funds, the original design was not completed. The original design included each president's sculpture to be from waist to head, and in the end, only the heads were completed.
Interesting Mount Rushmore Facts:
Mount Rushmore National Memorial was carved by Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln Borglum.
Construction began in 1927.
Gutzon Borglum died in March of 1941. His son Lincoln continued to work on the memorial until October of 1941, when funding ran out.
The work of the president's faces part of the sculpture began in 1934 and was finished in 1939.
The faces of the former presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are depicted on Mount Rushmore.
The entire area covered by the memorial is 1,278.45 square acres.
It is sits at 5,745 feet above sea level.
The historian Doane Robinson first conceived the idea of carving the images of famous people into rock faces. The idea was supposed to help promote the region's tourism.
Originally Robinson wanted the faces of Buffalo Bill, Red Cloud and Lewis and Clark, but it was decided the president's faces would be better.
Mount Rushmore faces southeast so that it gets the most sun exposure.
Approximately 3 million people visit the memorial each year.
Originally Thomas Jefferson's head was carved to the right of George Washington, but because the granite was too weak, it had to be moved to the right. The first carving of Thomas Jefferson was removed with dynamite.
Each of the president's heads is equal to a six-story high building. Their eyes are 11 feet wide; their mouths are 18 feet wide; and their noses are 20 feet long.
If the carvings were life-sized, the presidents would be 465 feet tall.
They had to remove more than 800 million pounds of stone to create the memorial. Nobody died during the carving of Mount Rushmore but there were a few injuries.
It cost approximately 9.9 million to build/carve Mount Rushmore.
Approximately one inch of the memorial will be lost due to erosion in 10,000 years.
90% of the memorial was carved with strategically placed dynamite. The other 10% was completed with air hammers.
The screenwriter Ernest Lehman tried to scale the faces but was not successful. He was in the process of writing Alfred Hitchcock's movie North by Northwest when he made his attempt. The movie features several shots of Mount Rushmore as well as a fight scene across the faces.
Mount Rushmore is also featured in the movies National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Team America: World Police, Mars Attacks! And many more.


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