Celebrating the centennial of one of America's most recognized monuments: 100 years of Mount Rushmore

It slipped under the radar for most of us, but 2025 is the anniversary of the founding of Mount Rushmore — aka  Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, or Six Grandfathers, in the Lakota language.

It remains a major accomplishment for sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln, along with a dedicated group of men who actually carved the images of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore “Don’t call me Teddy” Roosevelt on the granite face of the mountain.

We owe it all to state historian Doane Robinson and the quest for tourism dollars. Robinson, who envisioned a mountainous tribute to Old West legends like Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Sacagawea, Lewis and Clark, John C. Fremont and Buffalo Bill Cody, pushed for federal and state support for the idea.

On March 3, 1925, the federal government authorized a carving project in the Harney National Forest, a massive land tract that existed from 1911 until it was absorbed by the Black Hills National Forest in 1954.

The South Dakota Legislature passed a bill to support the carving and Gov. Carl Gunderson signed it into law on March 5, 1925.

But those dates have been obscured by the work itself, which lasted from 1927-41, with Gutzon Borglum, a brilliant, driven and mysterious man who changed the vision from Western heroes to presidents, especially TR, whom he had befriended and supported politically.

That’s kind of odd, since Borglum had close associations with the Ku Klux Klan — he attended meetings and knew many of its leaders, although he denied being a KKK member.

Roosevelt was a progressive who welcomed Black educator and writer Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner shortly after taking office in 1901. TR appointed other Black people to positions of authority and spoke highly of people whom he felt met his standards for achievement.

But he also harbored racist views that were all-too-typical for that era. He said Black soldiers were “shirkers” who did perform well in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Historians have proven that insult was unfounded.

Roosevelt spent time in Dakota Territory in the 1880s, forming a close friendship with Deadwood founding father Seth Bullock.

Roosevelt held highly racist views of Native Americans.

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every 10 are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth,” he said in 1886. “The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.”

TR also supported eugenics, which advocated for selective breeding of humans to encourage favorable — usually white — characteristics. The more you learn about TR, as with almost all famous figures, the less appealing he is.

The fact that the land where Mount Rushmore was carved is stolen is also troubling. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 set aside the Black Hills as a permanent reservation, but after gold was discovered, that was ignored.

Natives were killed, rounded up and placed on reservations in often-barred locations and the development of the mineral-rich, beautiful Black Hills began.

That’s why Robinson and his friend Sen. Peter Norbeck, the father of Custer State Park and one of the most influential people in state history, pushed so hard and ultimately successfully, to obtain funding for the mountain project. 

They wanted to draw more tourists to the state, and their dream was realized to an incredible degree.

But Mount Rushmore’s image is often cloudy, and not just in rainy weather.

Former Gov. Kristi Noem’s gift to President Trump after he spoke at the memorial in 2020 — a small bust of Rushmore with Trump’s image added — was widely ridiculed. I was the first reporter to reveal a photo of the carving, drawing interest from media outlets in the United States and England.

Where is it now? Did Trump bring it to the White House when he returned? Or is “Mount Trumpmore” gathering dust next to some secret documents in a cramped room at his Florida golf resort? A 2021 photo offered a clue.

In 2018, Noem told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader that Trump said he wanted to become the fifth face.

“‘Do you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?’” he told her, she said.

Noem thought he was kidding.

“I started laughing,” she said. “He wasn't laughing, so he was totally serious.”

Let’s hope that idea has slipped his mind. In 2020, Mount Rushmore National Memorial Chief of Interpretation and Education Maureen McGee-Ballinger said it cannot occur.

“From time to time individuals, groups or organizations make proposals to add the busts of other individuals to Mount Rushmore National Memorial,” McGee-Ballinger told me. “Additions are not possible for two reasons. First, the rock that surrounds the sculpted faces is not suitable for additional carving.  When Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore died in 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum closed down the project and stated that no more carvable rock existed.”

But that theory will continue to pop up.

I know many people across the world abhor Rushmore. They see it as a representation of white supremacy and a monument to the evils the USA inflicted on Native Americans. It’s hard to argue with those assessments.

And yet, I can’t help but be drawn to it. I first saw it in 1965 on a family trip, and have visited it many times since. I lived in Rapid City from 2005-09 and often drove up to see the Four Faces, as my mom always called it.

When I travel to the Black Hills, I almost always drive to Rushmore, to gaze at it like Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest movie, “North by Northwest.” He admired it, and later visited the home on the crest owned by master spy James Mason.

That house only existed in the movie, but wouldn’t it be great if it was real? Just be careful on the way down. Look what happened — deservedly so — to Martin 

Landau’s evil henchman’s character.

I have been fascinated by the many perspectives on the famed mountain.

American Indian Movement leader Russell Means, a controversial and colorful figure I got to know a bit, always referred to Mount Rushmore as “the Shrine of Hypocrisy,” a derivation of “The Shrine of Democracy.”

Means told me about his encampments atop Rushmore in 1970 and 1971, and laughed as he talked about peeing on George Washington. Offensive? Or a legitimate protest?

Gerard Baker, the former superintendent of Mount Rushmore as well as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail and the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, had a fascinating take on it.

Baker told me he was impressed by the mountain, but he preferred the untouched backside. He said he liked seeing it as it was, not the version created by Borglum, and offered me a private tour to its top.

Like a fool, I didn’t seize the opportunity.

Baker also wanted to use the 5,725-foot-high national memorial as a gathering spot for all ideas and points of view. He said if it started a conversation and got people thinking and considering the history and meaning of Mount Rushmore, it was serving a useful purpose.

“What a place to heal!” he told me.

That seems to be the best explanation I have heard. Maybe we will learn from that wise comment over the next 100 years.

Fourth-generation South Dakotan Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states for four decades. He has contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Do not republish without permission.

Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons

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