The Danish-American sculptor Gutzon Borglum began carving the heads of four presidents out of South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore in 1927, embarking on an ambitious project to build one of America’s most iconic memorials. Today, the heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt attract more than 2 million visitors every year.
But construction was predictably laborious, and Borglum died in 1941 before he could see his project finished. His son, Lincoln Borglum, completed the sculpture later that year. Today, on the 84th anniversary of the Fourth of July dedication of Washington’s head in the early years of carving, TIME looks back at the construction of the memorial that immortalized four presidents.
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum has marked off the rock which he will carve the likenesses of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., Aug. 15, 1927. APDrillers, suspended in slins fastened with cables to the winches at the top of the mountain, work on the George Washington head of the Mount Rushmore Memorial in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D. on July, 22, 1929. APGutzon Borglum, American sculptor, at work on the model for Mount Rushmore in his studio near the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D. circa 1930s. Underwood & Underwood/CorbisGutzon Borglum seen in his studio at Rushmore is working on the model of the head of Washington, Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., circa 1930s. Underwood & Underwood/CorbisStone carvers on scaffolding carve the face of Thomas Jefferson into Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D. in 1930. Underwood & Underwood/CorbisGutzon Borglum and another man hang from the sculpted forehead of President George Washington on Borglum's famous monumental sculpture at Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D. on May 31, 1932. CorbisSculptor Lincoln Borglum on the scaffold below the stone face of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt on the Mount Rushmore Memorial in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., April, 1944. AP"Oculists" at work on Jefferson's eye while Gutzon Borglum inspects the operation in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., circa 1930s. Underwood & Underwood/CorbisAmerican sculptor Gutzon Borglum (c), who is leading the Mount Rushmore National Memorial project, talks with a group of sculptors while inspecting an eye of one of the presidential heads in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., circa 1930s. Underwood & Underwood/CorbisAmerican sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln, inspect the Jefferson head from an aerial tram in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D. on Nov. 23, 1935. Underwood & Underwood/CorbisA man on the head of George Washington at Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., circa 1930s. Popperfoto/Getty ImagesView of Mount Rushmore in progress, 1927-1941. Bettmann/CorbisThe finished Mount Rushmore sculpture by Guzon Borglum, in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., circa early 1940s. Underwood Archives/Getty Images
