Mount Rushmore – Dale’s Daily Data [VIDEO]

It was the idea of a South Dakota historian who wanted to attract tourists to the state.  His plan was to sculpt the images of four of the country’s favorite presidents into the side of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest.

Work began in 1927 and it took 12 years before the complete project was done.  Sculptor Gutzon Borglum was hired and he began with the image of George Washington.  It took seven years before the first one was done in 1934.

Borglum next worked on the image of Thomas Jefferson to the right of Washington but it became so badly cracked the work had to be dynamited off.  As a result, Jefferson ended up on the left of Washington and that image was dedicated in 1936.

Lincoln was finished a year later and finally Teddy Roosevelt completed the project in 1939.  The entire project cost $1-million.

Each face is 60 feet tall.  The noses are about 12 feet long.

A total of 400 people worked on the project - some for just a short time.  One man was fired for yodeling.

Borglum continued working on Mount Rushmore and had plans to carve some type of history of the United States when he died in 1941.

But it was today in 1927 when work began on Mount Rushmore.

Here's a Mount Rushmore video roadtrip -

SOURCE: History Channel, jeanpatrick.com/mountrushmore