In the Black Hills of South Dakota, there’s a mountain with faces so big you can see them from miles away! Those faces belong to four U.S. presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

But they weren’t born there, of course. They were carved out of solid granite! It all began in the 1920s when a sculptor named Gutzon Borglum had a bold idea: to create a monument that would celebrate America’s history and its heroes — on the side of a mountain!

Carving Mount Rushmore was no small project. The mountain was over 5,000 feet high, and the granite was tough as steel. Borglum and his team of more than 400 workers spent 14 years carving it — from 1927 to October 31, 1941, the day it was finally declared complete.

They didn’t use tiny chisels — they used dynamite! About 450,000 tons of rock were blasted off the mountain before workers smoothed the faces with drills and jackhammers. Each president’s face is about 18 meters (60 feet) tall — that’s taller than a six-story building!

The workers were miners, blacksmiths, and ordinary people who climbed ropes every day to work high up on the rock. It was dangerous work, but amazingly, no one died during the construction.

When Borglum passed away in 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over and finished the project just weeks before the U.S. entered World War II. The original plan included full upper bodies, but the war and funding cuts meant only the faces were completed.

Each president was chosen for a reason:

Together, they represent the birth, growth, development, and preservation of the United States.

Mount Rushmore shows that big dreams take big teamwork.
It reminds us that creativity, courage, and persistence can turn even a mountain into a message.

So next time you see a mountain, imagine what you might carve into it — your own story of inspiration, teamwork, or discovery. Because as Gutzon Borglum proved, even stone can tell a story that lasts forever.