Located about twenty-five miles southwest of Rapid City, South Dakota, lies Mount Rushmore. Following Highway 244 from the west leads to the orientation center. There exhibits tell how sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved away twice the rock needed to construct Egypt's Great Sphinx (which isn't even as tall as Washington's nose). Through a 25-cent telescope one can witness Washington's wide brow and the sad, determined line of Lincoln's mouth, shaped by the terrible decisions of the Civil War. Jefferson gazes heavenward, eyes abrim with lofty ideas. One can observe Teddy Roosevelt's bully grit. And you realize that Borglum intended to incise basic American ideals here, to present history writ large in stone.

Borglum set about creating Mount Rushmore's famous 60-foot-high faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln by blasting and drilling them from Rushmore's gray pegmatite granite. He started work in 1927, wanting to sculpture full busts of the four Presidents, but died in 1941 with only the heads
completed, and almost no work has been done on the mountain since that time. The artist had chosen these President's because he felt they represented America's ideals and also her territorial destiny: Washington, land surveyor and father of his country; Jefferson, architect of the Louisiana Purchase; Lincoln, preserver of the Union in the face of civil war; and Theodore Roosevelt, extender of American prestige abroad and engineer of the Panama Canal Zone acquisition.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial and nearby parklands bring millions of visitors to South Dakota's Black Hills each year.