Today may be Halloween, and while many are going to be running around town tonight trick or treating with their best scary or happy face on, in 1941 someone else was working hard on putting their best face on too – four of them. Today marks the 70th anniversary of the completion on the famous Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
Here are some fun facts about the Memorial:
- The four faces are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.
- The faces carved on the side of the mountain are visible for up to 60 miles away.
- The sculpture was designed by Gutzon Borglum who died before it was completed and it was completed by his son, Lincoln in 1941.
- The memorial took 14 years to complete, with carving commencing in 1927.
- It is visited by more than 20,000 tourists each summer.
- Each President’s head is 60 feet high.
- The entire memorial is 1,278 acres.
- The president’s noses are 20 feet long, their mouths 18 feet wide, and their eyes are 11 feet across!
- Over 800 million pounds of stone was removed from the mountain during contruction
- Rushmore’s granite faces tower over 5,500 feet above sea level.
- Over 90% of Mount Rushmore was carved by using dynamite.
- Originally the head of Jefferson was started on Washington’s right side (on left if facing memorial), but after 18 months of carving the face had to be dynamited off the mountain and started over on the left of Washington.
Sources:
