Mount Rushmore was supposed to include the bodies of the presidents.

U.S. History

L ike many artistic endeavors, Mount Rushmore went through several phases before its final concept was decided upon. Before it was a tribute to four U.S. presidents, the massive sculpture was intended as a tourist destination honoring icons of the American frontier; potential figures included Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Buffalo Bill, and Lakota leader Red Cloud. But Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor responsible for Mount Rushmore, had a different idea. He wanted his "Shrine of Democracy" to honor George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt; he also wanted the sculpture to include their full bodies, but funding ran out. When Borglum died in 1941, 14 years after the project officially began, South Dakota deemed the sculpture complete with just the busts of the presidents.

Even in this limited form, it took more than 400 workers to finish the monument, none of whom perished during its construction (a rarity at the time). The four presidents were chosen to represent America's birth (Washington), expansion (Jefferson), preservation (Lincoln), and development (Roosevelt). Jefferson oversaw the Louisiana Purchase, Lincoln prevented the country from splitting in two, and Roosevelt supported the construction of the Panama Canal. Known to the Lakota people as Tunkasila Sakpe Paha, meaning "Six Grandfathers Mountain," the landmark was renamed for New York lawyer Charles E. Rushmore, who visited the site in 1885 and remarked that it needed a name.

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By the Numbers

Height (in feet) of each Mount Rushmore president's face

Official cost of creating Mount Rushmore

$989,992.32

Did you know?

Susan B. Anthony was almost added to Mount Rushmore.

Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill, and Red Cloud weren't the only people who almost made it onto Mount Rushmore. Susan B. Anthony, the activist who played a vital role in the women's suffrage movement, was considered as well. This came at the behest of a woman named Rose Arnold Powell, who wrote letters to President Calvin Coolidge, Borglum, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to advance her cause. After Roosevelt wrote her own letter to Borglum, he politely declined because he felt the addition of a fifth face was contrary to his original artistic vision, but he clarified that "no man living has a greater respect or a greater admiration for, or places woman in a more lofty position in civilization than I do." Borglum went on to write, "I have resented all my life any and all dependence or second place forced upon our mothers, our wives or our daughters, as has been the history of men's civilization, but I feel in this proposal that it is a very definite intrusion that will injure the specific purpose of this memorial." A bill was nevertheless introduced to Congress suggesting Anthony be included on Mount Rushmore, but it was unsuccessful. Her visage was later immortalized on a dollar coin produced by the U.S. Mint between 1979 and 1981.