This monument's sculptor ran out of funds before waists

The Original Vision

When Gutzon Borglum began carving Mount Rushmore in 1927, he planned a monument far grander than the four faces visitors see today. The original design called for each president to be carved from head to waist, with Washington's right arm extended westward and Jefferson holding a scroll representing the Louisiana Purchase. Borglum sketched detailed plans showing Washington in a Colonial-era coat, Theodore Roosevelt in his Rough Rider uniform, and Lincoln in the formal attire he wore during his presidency. The sculptor estimated the full figures would require another decade of work and approximately $1 million beyond the existing budget—equivalent to $20 million today. He presented scale models to Congress in 1930, arguing that half-figures would create a composition of unmatched grandeur, distinguishing the monument from mere portraiture. The National Park Service archives still hold Borglum's plaster maquettes, where you can see Jefferson's left hand gripping the purchase document and Roosevelt's muscular torso leaning slightly forward.

How the Carving Actually Worked

Borglum's crew used dynamite to remove 90 percent of the rock, drilling honeycomb patterns and blasting away granite in controlled bursts that sent debris cascading down the mountainside. Workers dangled from steel cables in leather harnesses, drilling holes four inches apart to a depth calculated by Borglum's measurements. Once the rough shape emerged, they switched to pneumatic hammers, refining the contours inch by inch. Each face required approximately 400,000 tons of granite to be removed. Borglum worked from a scale model in his studio at the mountain's base, measuring with calipers and translating every detail to the cliff using a pointing machine—a device with adjustable arms that allowed workers to transfer proportions from the model to the rock face at a 1:12 ratio. Thomas Jefferson's head had to be blasted off and re-carved to Washington's left after Borglum discovered a flaw in the stone. Carvers worked six-day weeks for $8 a day, and remarkably, not a single worker died in 14 years of blasting and drilling on a 500-foot cliff.

The Funding Collapse

Congress appropriated $250,000 for Mount Rushmore in 1929, but the Great Depression forced repeated delays and budget cuts. Borglum spent as much time fundraising as carving, traveling to Washington to plead for emergency funds and hosting donor dinners in Rapid City. By 1938, with only Washington and Jefferson complete, the project had burned through nearly all federal money, and private donations had dried up entirely. South Dakota Senator Peter Norbeck, Rushmore's chief congressional champion, died in 1936, and his replacement showed little interest in allocating more funds for what critics called "Borglum's folly." When Gutzon Borglum suffered a fatal embolism in March 1941 at age 73, his son Lincoln assumed control, but Congress refused to extend funding beyond October. Lincoln Borglum finished refining Theodore Roosevelt's face and roughed in Lincoln's forehead, but on October 31, 1941, he ordered the crew to lower their drills for the last time. The carving stopped with all four heads complete but no torsos, no Hall of Records tunnel, and 70 percent of Borglum's vision unrealized. Six weeks later, Pearl Harbor diverted every federal dollar to the war effort, and Mount Rushmore became a monument to ambition interrupted.

Why It Still Matters Today

Mount Rushmore draws three million visitors annually, making it South Dakota's top attraction, yet most guests have no idea they're viewing an unfinished work. The truncated composition—four disembodied heads emerging from raw granite—creates an eerie, iconic image that wouldn't exist if Borglum had completed his plan. Art historians argue that the partial carving inadvertently strengthened the monument's visual impact: the faces loom larger and more mythic precisely because they're not grounded in torsos and gestures. The National Park Service completed a scaled-down version of Borglum's Hall of Records in 1998, placing a titanium vault with historical documents 300 feet behind Lincoln's head, but no further carving has occurred since 1941. Environmental studies show that continued carving would destabilize the remaining rock, and cultural shifts have made heroic presidential monuments controversial—Native American activists point out that the sculpture was carved on land sacred to the Lakota, taken by the U.S. government after gold was discovered in the Black Hills. The frozen, half-finished monument captures a specific moment in American self-mythology, and its incompleteness has become its most revealing feature.