Mount Rushmore

When Roscoe Bartlett was born, Mount Rushmore was just another mountain in South Dakota. It wasn't until 1927 that Gutzon Borglum (no, really, that's his name) and his 400 workers began using dynamite to blast away at the granite mountain. By then, Calvin Coolidge had already insisted that in addition to George Washington, there should be at least two Republicans and only one Democrat. No, partisan politics is not a relatively new development. Anyway, that's how it came to pass that the Presidents chosen for the sculpture would include Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt. Someone in Congress introduced a bill to include Susan B. Anthony, but it never passed. The sculpture was finished in 1941 for less than $1 Million. Remarkably, no one was killed working on the sculpture.

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