Mt. Rushmore as originally planned

[kskiska]

Gutzon Borglum, a member of the Freemasons and the sculptor responsible for Stone Mountain, wanted his defining work, Mount Rushmore in Keystone, South Dakota, to be a much bigger undertaking than it ended up being anyway. Finished by Borglum's son, Lincoln, Mount Rushmore as it stands today, with the heads of presidents (from left to right) Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, carved into a granite rock face, took about 14 years to complete. Original plans called for the sculpture, which attracts about two million tourists annually, to depict the four presidents from head to waist, but the project was cut short when money ran out. All told, the entire project cost nearly $1 million.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/picture-of-the-day-mount-rushmore-as-originally-planned/238920/

[HopeHoops]

1. Now it would cost $800 million, take 20 years, and never get done.

But Halliburton or whatever RW company got the no-bid contract would still walk away with the cash.

[toddwv]

8. That's lowballing it.

It would probably easily cost over a billion dollars and after 10 years and $500,000,000 spent, a Republican house would threaten to kill the project unless Roosevelt was replaced with Reagan...

[HopeHoops]

13. Then they would want to add the shrub and expect Democrats to come up with tax cuts to cover it.

[Indydem]

2. Some things you may not know:

"The image of Thomas Jefferson was originally intended to appear in the area at Washington's right, but after the work there was begun, the rock was found to be unsuitable, so the work on the Jefferson figure was dynamited, and a new figure was sculpted to Washington's left."

"Borglum had also planned a massive panel in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase commemorating in eight-foot-tall gilded letters the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Louisiana Purchase, and seven other territorial acquisitions from Alaska to Texas to the Panama Canal Zone."

"In a canyon behind the carved faces is a chamber, cut only 70 feet (21 m) into the rock, containing a vault with sixteen porcelain enamel panels. The panels include the text of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, biographies of the four presidents and Borglum, and the history of the U.S. The chamber was created as the entranceway to a planned "Hall of Records"; the vault was installed in 1998."

All from Wikipedia, cause I knew they'd be there :)

[jberryhill]

5. But you first have to get the map from the president's secret diary

...to find the vault.

[prairierose]

6. There are many stories about the work and ...

when they had to dynamite the first part of the sculpture off the mountain when they found the bad rock. There was a time when Borglum had different plans for the placement but the picture above was his final design. That picture was taken in the sculptor's studio which has a great view of the mountain and it was from that model and that window that they made the measurements which were then transferred to the mountain to complete the carving.

The Hall of Records was never really completed because they ran out of money. It was Borglum's daughter who kept after him to include a Hall of Records and to complete at least the part that is finished. My boss says that today, the hall is mostly used as a shelter by the mountain goats when the weather is bad. It is not open to the public. It is a heck of a climb to get there.

The point of the Hall of Records was that geologists figure the sculpture will last 100,000 years. Since we do not know the history of the Sphinx, the Borglums thought that there should be a more permanent record of the country that carved Mt. Rushmore.

I work in Keystone in the summer and answer many questions about the mountain carving every day.

[Nye Bevan]

3. (comment expressing politically correct disgust at the "desecration"

of this sacred Native American mountain in 3-2-1)

[Maru Kitteh]

4. You can still go and see that model in his studio on the site. n/t

[KansDem]

7. Think of the possibilities!

...depict the four presidents from head to waist

"North by Northwest" could have been 30 minutes longer with Cary Grant running all over the presidents' heads and their shoulders, chests, upper arms and stomachs!

[tishaLA]

18. It's shameful I know, but whenever I see photos of Rushmore, I think

about North by Northwest.

[pipi_k]

9. Confession....

I was such a dumb kid that for the longest time I thought those faces were a natural phenomenon.

It never ceased to amaze me how Mother Nature could have made such life-like rock sculptures.

:7

[woo me with science]

14. LOL!

That's cute.

[TheManInTheMac]

17. Me too!

I thought I was the only one.

:toast:

[MilesColtrane]

10. The Crazy Horse Memorial will dwarf it.

[47of74]

11. Wonder how long it'll take to complete

Decades? Centuries?

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. The Lakota aren't any happier about that one than they are Mount Rushmore

desecration of sacred ground and all. Bit of an irony there, I'd say.

[MilesColtrane]

16. "Bit of an irony there"

Yes, especially when you consider that the project was initiated by Lakota Intancan, Chief Henry Standing Bear.

[HardWorkingDem]

15. Book - Mount Rushmore An Icon Reconsidered

The book details the background of Gutzon Borglum and how one major aspect of his creation was to make money......

From one book review:

"Gutzon Borglum, Rushmore's creator, was indeed a noted sculptor; he was also (briefly) a highly placed member of the Ku Klux Klan. But he did not work alone: a large crew of artisans did the actual face carving, working from a model Borglum created. And Mount Rushmore is a tribute to one version of American democracy; Borglum was a proponent of manifest destiny, an expansionist doctrine that called for the eradication of the American Indian (the Black Hills themselves were appropriated from the Lakota). In fact, Mount Rushmore, in many ways, was intended as a beacon of white superiority shining out from lands once owned by Indians."