Before anyone called it Rushmore, this mountain had no English name. The Black Hills were sacred to the Lakota people, guaranteed to them forever by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. That guarantee lasted until gold was discovered. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled the seizure illegal, but offered only money rather than the return of the land. The Lakota refused. They have never accepted compensation and never recognized the legitimacy of the monument carved into their sacred mountain. In 1884, a New York attorney named Charles E. Rushmore came to check legal titles on properties in the area. When he asked the name of the prominent granite outcropping, a local reportedly replied that it had none, but they would call it Rushmore in his honor. The name stuck, and so did the irony: a mountain named for a lawyer checking property titles that were themselves rooted in broken treaties.

Ninety percent of Mount Rushmore was carved with dynamite. The powdermen were artists in their own right, cutting and placing charges of precise sizes to remove exact amounts of rock. They calculated blast patterns that would shear away tons of granite without damaging the final carving surface. Workers in the winch house hand-cranked the mechanisms that raised and lowered the drillers. The final faces emerged through a technique called honeycombing: drilling holes so close together that the weakened granite could be removed by hand. Then came the bumper tools, smoothing surfaces to sidewalk-like finishes. The men worked through blazing summers and bitter winters. Many admitted to being uneasy with heights. But this was the Depression, and any job was a good job. The four faces took 14 years to complete, from the first blast on October 4, 1927 to the official dedication on October 31, 1941.

Gutzon Borglum dreamed bigger than four faces. His original design showed Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln from head to waist, their bodies emerging from the mountain as if rising from the stone itself. Behind them, carved into the canyon, a Hall of Records would house America's founding documents in a majestic underground chamber. Borglum started blasting the hall but never finished it. He died suddenly in March 1941. His son Lincoln tried to continue the work, but funding evaporated as America entered World War II. Visitors today can see a model of Borglum's complete vision in the Sculptor's Studio. In 1998, the Hall of Records received a partial completion: a titanium vault was placed in the floor of the entry passage, containing sixteen porcelain enamel panels inscribed with the story of the memorial and a brief history of the United States. It is sealed and inaccessible to visitors, left as a message for people thousands of years from now.

From left to right: George Washington, father of the nation, his 60-foot face emerging first and setting the scale for all that followed. Thomas Jefferson, originally planned for Washington's right side but moved to his left when the rock proved unsuitable. Theodore Roosevelt, the only 20th-century president, selected for his role in building the Panama Canal and trust-busting. Abraham Lincoln, who preserved the Union through its greatest crisis. Each face stands about 60 feet high. If their bodies had been completed as planned, each figure would tower 465 feet tall. The faces took shape over fourteen years, carved by a rotating crew of roughly 400 workers whose jobs ranged from call boys to drillers to blacksmiths to housekeepers. The mountain drew tourists even during construction, and it has never stopped drawing them since.

The memorial operates as a sort of natural amphitheater. Visitors follow the Avenue of Flags, one for each state, to the Grand View Terrace. From there, the four presidents stare down from their granite perch. The Presidential Trail offers a closer view for those willing to walk. Rock climbing is permitted in the park, though not near the sculptures. No camping, no open fires, no overnight stays. The gift shop is enormous. Seventeen miles away, another mountain is being carved: the Crazy Horse Memorial, started in 1948 by Korczak Ziolkowski, who once worked under Borglum. When complete, Crazy Horse will dwarf Rushmore, a pointed commentary on whose heroes get immortalized in stone. For now, the four presidents remain the most visited faces in South Dakota, drawing more than three million people each year to gaze upon a monument that is simultaneously a feat of engineering, a symbol of American ambition, and a reminder of promises broken.