The Hidden Engineering Marvel of Mount Rushmore: How Gold Miners Created a National Icon

There is something unusual about Mount Rushmore.

Unlike most sculptures that clearly show signs of careful and artistic craftsmanship, Mount Rushmore appears almost as if it formed naturally from the mountain itself.

Yet in truth, it is not only an artistic creation but also an incredible feat of engineering.

Surprisingly, this monumental work was not sculpted by experienced artists but rather by a large team of gold miners who had no artistic background.

Using jackhammers, dynamite, and some ingenious engineering, they managed to bring to life the enormous faces of four U.S.presidents.

What is even more fascinating is how they managed to map such precise faces onto a rugged mountain using technology inspired by ancient Greece.

And all of it was done without the loss of a single life.

To truly understand the significance of Mount Rushmore, we have to go back in time to discover why it was built in the first place.

In the early 1920s, South Dakota was still a young state trying to establish a national identity and attract attention.

Don Robinson, the state historian, was inspired by a massive sculpture underway in Georgia and believed a similar project could bring tourists to South Dakota.

He reached out to Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor behind the Stone Mountain Memorial, and suggested creating a grand tribute to America’s Wild West heroes.

Borglum liked the idea but proposed something more universally appealing: giant faces of prominent U.S.presidents.

In 1925, Borglum traveled to South Dakota and found Mount Rushmore, a 500-foot granite cliff face.

He instantly recognized it as the perfect canvas for his project.

With the location secured, Borglum began examining photographs of the presidents and produced a 1:12 scale model.

However, he now faced the enormous challenge of translating this small model into a giant sculpture carved into solid rock.

At the time, the area had no infrastructure, no roads, no electricity, and no way for workers to access the mountain.

So, in the summer of 1927, a road was constructed to bring in supplies and people.

Soon a small village emerged at the base of the mountain, complete with tool shops, blacksmiths, and housing for workers.

An enormous staircase was built to access the mountain, and a cable car system was put in place to move tools and materials.

A winch house was erected at the top of the mountain to raise and lower workers seated on small platforms to their workstations.

With the site finally prepared, they began carving the first face, George Washington.

The process began with dynamite blasts to remove large sections of rock and shape a rough egg-like head.

From there, jackhammers were used to sculpt finer features.

Operating 30 kg jackhammers while suspended over a cliff was incredibly difficult.

Powering them required a building at the mountain’s base that housed three massive air compressors, which were run using electricity supplied by a local gold mine.

Compressed air was funneled through 2,000 feet of piping up the staircase and into a structure at the mountain summit where up to 16 jackhammers could be operated simultaneously.

To stabilize the jackhammers and ensure accuracy, workers developed specialized techniques, sometimes using chains or their own feet to guide the tools.

Though they became skilled with the equipment, none were artists, which raised the question: how did they know where and how deep to drill?

During his work on the Stone Mountain Memorial, Borglum had used a large projector to map his designs onto the rock.

But the massive size and three-dimensional nature of Mount Rushmore made that approach impossible.

Instead, Borglum turned to an ancient Greek tool known as a pointing machine.

The Greeks used pointing machines to create identical replicas of sculptures by measuring specific points relative to a central axis.

Borglum adapted this technique for his mountain-sized project.

He created a metal arm with a weighted point that swung around a fixed axis, which could measure a point’s angle, horizontal distance, and vertical distance from a reference spot on the model.

By multiplying each measurement by 12, he could transfer the coordinates from the scale model directly onto the cliff.

To implement this, he built a giant pointing machine on Mount Rushmore itself.

This allowed workers to mark thousands of precise points on the mountain, guiding them on exactly where and how deep to carve.

Rather than sculpting entire features all at once, the workers would drill a honeycomb of holes close together, then chisel away the stone between them.

This technique allowed them to create detailed forms with consistency and accuracy.

Workers spent 8-hour days dangling over a 500-foot drop, earning just 50 cents an hour.

Yet their dedication and teamwork paid off.

George Washington’s head was eventually completed, and the team turned to fine-tuning the sculpture’s details.

One of the most challenging aspects of the sculpture was the eyes.

In classical sculptures, eyes often appear flat and lifeless due to their smoothness.

Borglum wanted the Mount Rushmore eyes to look reflective and alive from a distance.

To achieve this, he carved deep shadows into the eye sockets and left a square block of stone in the center of each pupil to mimic a reflective glint.

It was a risky process, as the unsupported stone could break off, but the effect was visually stunning.

When viewed from afar, the eyes appeared to shine.

To finalize the work, a process called bumping was used to smooth the surface and give the faces a brighter, whiter appearance.

Despite working for 14 years, the project was never fully completed.

Borglum’s original plan included carving the figures down to their waists and constructing a decorative tomb behind the sculpture, which was only partially started.

The outbreak of World War II diverted funds and attention away from the project, and Borglum passed away just a few years later.

Though incomplete, Mount Rushmore fulfilled its purpose.

It brought global attention to South Dakota and became an enduring symbol of American history and ingenuity.

The fact that a group of untrained workers led by a visionary artist managed to carve such massive and detailed faces using early 20th-century technology is a testament to human determination, collaboration, and creativity.

From building roads and winch systems to adapting ancient Greek tools for modern use, the creation of Mount Rushmore remains one of the most ambitious engineering feats ever undertaken in the name of art.

As visitors gaze upon the colossal faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, they are reminded not only of the presidents they represent but also of the incredible story of human ingenuity that brought this monument to life.