Photo: Ken Lund
Broken Indian treaties and the KKK…how much do you really know about Mt. Rushmore?
The L.A. Times’ online travel section recently published a list of trivia on Mt. Rushmore, the U.S. national memorial featuring the faces of four American presidents carved into a granite cliff in South Dakota’s Black Hills.
Intended to share various fun facts on a national icon, the list includes entries such as:
Photo: StuSeeger
* George Washington has the longest nose of the four.
* Ninety percent of the carving work was carried out with dynamite.
* Thomas Jefferson was originally positioned on Washington’s right, but this face was blown up and a new one carved between Washington and Roosevelt.
Yet, the article also relates a few obscure historical points about the monument that raise eyebrows in a different way:
1. The lead sculptor may have been a member of the KKK.
Gutzon Borglum was the man charged with creating the monument in 1927.
Photo: Peter Kaminski
However, immediately prior to this, he had been laboring on a different project: the Confederate Memorial Carving on Stone Mountain, Georgia.
This is the largest bas-relief in the world and depicts Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and “Stonewall” Jackson.
Its construction was funded in large part by Georgia’s Ku Klux Klan.
Though Borglum didn’t finish the job, he became pretty chummy with KKK leaders during his time at Stone Mountain, and his experiences there directly influenced his work on Mt. Rushmore.
2. The Black Hills are stolen land.
In 1868, the U.S. government signed a treaty with various American Indian peoples guaranteeing Indian ownership of the Black Hills forever. Just nine years later the government took back the land (there’s a term for that, isn’t there?) following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills.
In other words, a proud monument commemorating heroes of American democracy sits on land acquired through lies.
Photo: KimonBerlin
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the Black Hills had been illegally seized and ordered the federal government to pay $105 million to the American Indians still residing in the region.
The money was refused.
What’s more, on another cliff just 17 miles from Rushmore, a new monument is slowly taking shape. Its subject is Crazy Horse, the famous Oglala Lakota leader.
Progress is slow, due to the desire of those involved to avoid using government funds. But when completed, it will be nearly 10 times as tall as Mt. Rushmore — the largest statue in the world.
More than a monument
If you’re one of the 3 million visitors to Mt. Rushmore this year, make sure to keep the above “trivia” in mind.
Like any travel destination, there’s more here than meets the eye.
Community Connection
Rapid City, South Dakota, isn’t just the gateway to Mt. Rushmore, but also to Pristine America.
If you get fired up on history, you’ll enjoy these other Matador titles:
10 Key Destinations For The Historical Time Traveler
How to Take a Foreign History Crash Course in 5 Steps
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10 Comments... join the discussion!
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Very interesting! I love finding out these ‘little known facts’ about well know attractions. Now when I finally visit South Dakota I’ll have something to talk about!
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Fascinating. I love the idea of the Crazy Horse statue…learning about that project might have made my day, in fact!
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Yeah, and the fact that it’s going to be the biggest statue in the WORLD…pretty cool.
As a matter of fact, though, American Indian communities are divided about it. Defacing a mountain to honor someone who held nature in such high esteem strikes some as hypocritical.
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Good point Hal, seems to be a mixed message
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An educational writeup and great photos !
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Penn & Teller has an episode about it streaming on Netflix.
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Thanks for pointing us to this, Tim. I’ve embedded an excerpt from YouTube below. The Mt. Rushmore info starts halfway through. I don’t find the tone particularly constructive, but it’s interesting and entertaining.
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Most monuments seem to have a checkered past. Probably because only checkered people have the money to spend on monuments. If we really think about it – a more liberal person would probably have spent the money to help people instead of building a monument
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Well put. Perhaps we’ll have to dig into the history of other famous monuments. Stay tuned.
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