10 Tips for Visiting Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Known as the “Shrine of Democracy”, Mount Rushmore is located in the Black Hills region of South Dakota and attracts over two million visitors each year. The Black Hills are known for the ponderosa pine trees that give the illusion of darkness from a distance.
The concept of an attraction that would drum up business for the economy and bring visitors to South Dakota was the idea of Doane Robinson, the state historian of South Dakota. He originally wanted to honor western heroes, like Lewis and Clarke and Chief Red Cliff. Robinson sought out mountain carvers and found well known sculpture Gutzon Borglum, who was working on a project in Georgia. Borglum changed the scope of the project by switching the location and the profiles to feature American presidents that best represent 150 years of American history. He chose Mount Rushmore, named for New York attorney Charles Rushmore who inspected the mountain for mining in the 1880s, because of its location: it was big enough for the scale of the project, it was made of hard rock, and it faced southeast, which provided good daytime light.
