Thursday, July 26, 2018

A Visit to Mount Rushmore

I continue on my "what I did on my vacation" series.  Be happy you are not a captive for dinner and forced to watch slides.  Last month my wife and I visited Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  I took the picture herein.  Here's what Wikeleaks says about it:
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore, a batholith in the Black Hills in Keystone, South Dakota, United States. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the sculpture's design and oversaw the project's execution from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum. Mount Rushmore features 60-foot sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. The memorial park covers 1,278.45 acres and is 5,725 feet above sea level.
Some interesting facts about Mt. Rushmore:  It was never completely finished.  Congress stopped funding construction in 1941, leaving Abe Lincoln's hair and ear unfinished.

Originally, Thomas Jefferson was to be to our left of Washington, but Borglum decided he didn't have enough rock to work with, so "erased"  the sculpture and redid it to our right of Washington.

Teddy Roosevelt did not have enough accomplishment to justify his inclusion in the sculpture, but he had been a personal friend of Borglum, and so was included.

Only George Washington has his chest and lapels sculpted.  The other three presidents are heads only. 

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