More than a monument

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 3rd.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown..

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: building something that lasts.

Tomorrow, is the Fourth of July, when we celebrate our nation’s first steps towards freedom. The founders hoped to build a nation that could stand the test of time, and since then many have tried to build monuments to the founders that do the same.

REICHARD: Back in 1937, sculptor Gutzon Borglum started chiseling the granite of Mount Rushmore… and this year WORLD’s Mary Muncy visited the monument to learn the story behind it and what it still says about our nation today.

MARY MUNCY: Jim and Connie O’Conner stand looking up at the stone faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Connie says the view is moving.

CONNIE O’CONNER: What man can do when they put their mind to it? It's just, it's amazing

JIM O’CONNER: It's also reflective of American democracy.

State flags rustle in the breeze as people from all over the world study the details in the granite.

JIM: I think people forget very easily what makes America great and people need to just stop and slow down and remember what you know, what we're thankful for, and how God has blessed us.

That’s exactly the reaction the monument’s sculptor would have wanted, but the project started with a different vision.

In 1927, a South Dakota state historian named Doane Robinson wanted to entice tourists headed out west to Yellowstone to stop in his state. His idea? A rock carving of the “Heroes of the West.”

JONES: He then tries to find a sculptor and make it happen.

Ben Jones is the current state historian of South Dakota.

Two sculptors turned Robinson down, the third one was a man named Gutzon Borglum.

JONES : He's fascinated and captivated by the idea of making something that lasts so long, ages and ages.

So carving a mountainside was right up his alley, but he didn’t think the “Heroes of the West” idea was quite right.

JONES: This is something that lasts for thousands of years, and we've got to do it right, and it should be something that speaks to different aspects of the nation's character.

Politicians believed something with national appeal would likely bring more tourists, and more funding. Borglum settled on sculpting four major American figures.

Washington founded the nation. Jefferson expanded it with the Louisiana Purchase. Lincoln preserved the nation in a time of crisis, and Roosevelt focused on conserving the land.

MOUNT RUSHMORE UNVEILED: It’s 1930 and sculptor Gutzon Borglum is about to inspect the first of three figures of the Mount Rushmore Memorial in the heart of South Dakota’s Black Hills.

Borglum thought long-term from the beginning.

JONES: This is a kind of a virtue that many in America find hard to grasp, is that thinking of building something so solid that lasts for so long.

But not everyone was on board.

At the time, some people wanted to preserve Mount Rushmore’s natural beauty, historian Robinson defended his idea in newspapers.

JONES: His comeback to that was, ‘we're taking something that's little known at the time—Mount Rushmore…it was just kind of a blip on the map. It wasn't anything that people went to and so they thought they were enhancing that in their own patriotic way.

And Mount Rushmore and the surrounding mountains are a sacred place to some Native American tribes in the area. Borglum tried to mitigate that by inviting the religious leader of the Lakota Sioux, Black Elk, to visit the site.

JONES: Black Elk will go to the top of the mountain and say a blessing for the safety of the workers and for the whole effort.

For 13 years, Borglum and his 400-man crew worked on the mountain with dynamite and jackhammers:

NEWSREEL: Hanging from the top in bosun chairs, Gutzon Borglum and his son go over the 60 foot Washington face. Taking measurements to make sure it’s properly proportioned…

They finished all of the figure heads and were working to carve at least Washington down to the waist, when Borglum got sick.

He died in 1940. His son Lincoln took over the project.

JONES: But they realized that getting it down to the waist, the rock was not suitable to do that, so they pretty much stopped at the faces and cleaned up the aesthetics of it.

Lincoln Borglum also remarked that there was no more usable rock to the sides of the monument, meaning no other figures could be added to it. He stopped the project in 1941, without a single fatality

Jones says state historian Doane Robinson got what he wanted: more visitors. But Borglum’s vision helped Mount Rushmore become more than a tourist attraction.

In the evening, the Park Service puts on a program about the monument that ends by honoring veterans.

Ed Selznick served in the U.S. military for 23 years.

SELZNICK: You take a vow to protect America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And you've got your families back here who are relying on you, depending on you, your friends, your whole life, your whole lifestyle. It truly means it truly means everything.

A few people I talked to found the park underwhelming, or were just there to check it off their list. But most said they walked away knowing more about the founders and the principles that make America a great nation.

For Grace Huggins, it’s the capstone of her family’s western road trip.

HUGGINS: We’ve seen a lot of national parks that were the work of the hand of God, and this is special because it's the work of the hand of man, and it's, it's just about as beautiful. God, God gives glory to the things that that we reverently make and with beauty for him.

NEWSREEL: Designed to last the ages, the Mount Rushmore work is today considered one of the wonders of the world.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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