Mount Rushmore is in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It has sculptures of four presidents of the United States. They are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. Each sculpture is about 60 feet high.

Doane Robinson wanted to bring tourists to South Dakota. He had an idea. He would have the Presidents’ faces carved in a mountain. He found a sculptor. Robinson got the United States Congress to give money for the project.

Work started in 1927. It was finished in 1941. Hundreds of people worked on it. They carved using dynamite and jackhammers. They used chisels and drills.

The project did not turn out exactly as planned. Jefferson was supposed to be on Washington’s right. The rock there was not good. His head was moved to the left. The carvings were supposed to show the men from head to waist. There was not enough money for that.

Many Native Americans do not like the sculpture. There was a treaty in 1868. It gave the Lakotas control of the Black Hills forever. Then the United States took the land back in 1877. A Native American was made superintendent of the park in 2004.

Almost 3,000,000 people visit Mount Rushmore each year. The sculpture was cleaned in 2005.