Why Mount Rushmore Almost Had a Very Different Look
Mount Rushmore looks inevitable today, but the familiar row of four presidential faces is really the surviving fragment of a much larger, repeatedly revised plan.
The project began with another location and a different cast of historical figures. Once carving started, unreliable granite forced a major rearrangement. Money and time eliminated the presidents’ lower bodies, a giant inscription, and an elaborate archive inside the mountain. Even the final four-person lineup briefly faced pressure to change.
Before the presidents, there was a tourism idea
In the early 1920s, South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson was looking for a bold attraction that could draw travelers into the Black Hills. His proposal was not initially a shrine to presidents. He imagined enormous figures associated with the American West carved into the narrow granite formations known as the Needles.
A regional monument, not yet a national one
Robinson’s early concept centered on frontier history. Accounts of the proposal commonly name explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, showman William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, and Lakota leader Red Cloud among the possible subjects. In other words, the first version would have resembled a monumental history of the West rather than a presidential portrait gallery.
That distinction matters. Mount Rushmore did not begin with a fixed message and then move smoothly toward completion. Its purpose changed before the first major carving work even began.
Why the Needles lost the project
The Needles were visually dramatic, but they were poor candidates for a sculpture on Borglum’s intended scale. Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln inspected the area and found that its narrow, fractured formations did not provide the broad mass of dependable granite the project required.
Borglum instead favored Mount Rushmore, whose exposed southeastern face offered a wider carving surface and useful daylight. The change was not simply an artistic preference. Monumental carving depends on the internal condition of the rock. A beautiful outline is useless if hidden fractures make a sixty-foot face unstable.
How four presidents replaced the Western heroes
Borglum wanted the memorial to speak to the entire country, not only to the history of one region. He therefore promoted a lineup of presidents who, in his interpretation, represented four stages in the national story: founding, expansion, preservation, and development.
Placed most prominently to represent the nation’s founding and the creation of the new republic.
Chosen to represent territorial expansion, especially the Louisiana Purchase during his presidency.
Presented as the figure of national preservation during the Civil War.
Used by Borglum to symbolize national development and the United States’ growing international role.
This interpretation was Borglum’s own commemorative framework, not a neutral or complete summary of American history. A different sponsor, artist, or generation could have selected entirely different people—or rejected the idea of carving the mountain altogether.
The granite intervenesJefferson’s first position had to be erased
The most visible redesign happened after carving was already underway. Thomas Jefferson was originally placed on Washington’s right, which is the viewer’s left. Workers began shaping the figure there, but inconsistencies and weaknesses in the rock made the location unsuitable.
In 1934, Borglum relocated Jefferson to Washington’s other side. The abandoned work was blasted away, and the portrait was begun again in the position seen today. That single geological problem reshaped the composition of the entire memorial.
Jefferson was positioned on Washington’s right, leaving another part of the mountain available for a large inscription.
Defective and inconsistent rock forced Jefferson’s relocation to Washington’s left.
Lincoln occupied space associated with the earlier inscription plan, while the old Jefferson work disappeared into the debris slope below.
This was not a cosmetic adjustment. It changed the spacing, silhouette, and visual rhythm of the sculpture. The arrangement that now looks carefully predetermined was, in part, a practical response to what the granite allowed.
The larger sculptureThe presidents were meant to extend to their waists
Borglum’s models envisioned far more than four isolated heads. The figures were intended to continue downward with shoulders, coats, lapels, hands, and upper bodies extending roughly to the waist. Some incomplete work below the faces hints at that broader composition, especially around Washington.
Yet the project was under continual financial pressure. Borglum also spent significant energy seeking additional appropriations while revising his plans. After his death in March 1941, his son Lincoln supervised the remaining work. Congress declared the memorial complete on October 31, 1941, as the United States approached direct involvement in World War II.
What Borglum envisioned
- Four presidential figures extending toward the waist
- More clothing, shoulders, hands, and body detail
- A monumental written explanation of the memorial
- An elaborate archive inside the mountain
What was completed
- Four approximately sixty-foot heads
- Limited neck, collar, shoulder, and chest work
- No giant readable inscription on the cliff
- A rough tunnel later adapted as a sealed repository
The familiar “floating heads” effect is therefore not the full artistic concept. It is the point at which ambition, geology, congressional priorities, money, and time finally stopped meeting.
Unfinished additionsThe missing inscription and the room behind the mountain
The Entablature
Borglum planned a large inscription summarizing United States history. It was to use letters about three feet tall and occupy an area shaped to evoke the Louisiana Purchase. The year “1776” was started on the mountain, but Jefferson’s relocation disrupted the available space. Borglum also concluded that a long text would be difficult to read from the viewing area below.
The Hall of Records
Borglum shifted his explanatory ambitions inside the mountain. He imagined a formal chamber containing founding documents, historical records, notable achievements, and busts of important Americans. Workers blasted a roughly seventy-foot tunnel between 1938 and 1939, but Congress directed available money toward completing the faces.
Is there really a “secret room”?
There is a real passage behind the sculpture, but popular descriptions often make it sound more complete and mysterious than it is. The Hall of Records is an unfinished, rough-cut tunnel rather than a furnished public chamber reached by a hidden staircase.
In 1998, a repository was installed in the floor of the unfinished hall. It contains sixteen porcelain-enamel panels explaining the memorial, its construction, the four presidents, and a concise history of the United States. The repository is sealed beneath a granite capstone and is not open to visitors. It functions more like a time capsule than a secret museum.
A possible fifth portraitSusan B. Anthony was proposed—but never carved
In 1937, legislation was introduced proposing that women’s-rights leader Susan B. Anthony be added to the memorial. The idea had been promoted for years by campaigner Rose Arnold Powell, who argued that the mountain should recognize women’s contributions to the nation.
The proposal ended when Congress required federal money to be spent only on figures already underway. No Anthony portrait was begun. Mount Rushmore therefore remained a four-person composition, but the episode shows that the lineup was not treated as completely untouchable while the memorial was still being carved.
The most consequential alternative was an uncarved mountain
Any discussion of how Mount Rushmore might have looked must include the land beneath the sculpture. The Black Hills are sacred to Lakota people and were reserved for Sioux occupation under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. After gold was discovered, the United States failed to keep miners and settlers out and took the Black Hills through an 1877 act.
In United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980), the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the 1877 action amounted to a taking of tribal property requiring just compensation. Sioux tribes have not accepted the monetary award, maintaining that the Black Hills were not offered for sale. The dispute remains central to how many Native people interpret Mount Rushmore.
That history changes the question from “Which additional face should have been carved?” to a more fundamental one: “Should the sacred mountain have been carved at all?” For many visitors, understanding both the memorial’s intended national symbolism and the Lakota relationship to the Black Hills is essential to seeing the site honestly.
Four popular claims, clarified
“Mount Rushmore was completed exactly as planned.”
No. Jefferson changed sides, the bodies remained unfinished, the giant inscription disappeared, and the Hall of Records was never developed into Borglum’s intended chamber.
“A finished secret room sits behind Lincoln.”
No. A real tunnel exists behind the sculpture, but it is rough-cut, inaccessible to the public, and contains a sealed 1998 repository rather than a furnished hidden hall.
“The four presidents were Robinson’s original subjects.”
No. Robinson’s tourism proposal initially emphasized figures associated with the American West. Borglum pushed the project toward a national presidential theme.
“More faces could easily be added today.”
That is not a simple extension of the original work. The mountain contains fractures and varying rock conditions, and the existing sculpture is actively monitored and preserved as a historic resource.
How to see Mount Rushmore with fresh eyes
The memorial is not merely four faces cut into permanent stone. It is a record of abandoned locations, discarded subjects, geological failures, political choices, interrupted funding, and competing ideas about national memory.
Look at Jefferson and remember that he once occupied the opposite side. Look below the faces and imagine coats, hands, and torsos that were never finished. Look behind the ridge and picture Borglum’s unrealized archive. Then look outward across the Black Hills and remember that the mountain’s meaning did not begin with the sculptor—and remains contested long after the drills fell silent.
The result seen today is not the only Mount Rushmore that was imagined. It is the version the rock, the budget, Congress, history, and power allowed to remain.
Sources and further reading
- National Park Service: Mount Rushmore Student Guide
- National Park Service: The Entablature Idea
- National Park Service: Hall of Records
- National Park Service: Memorial History
- National Park Service: Foundation Document Overview
- U.S. Supreme Court decision: United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980)
- PBS American Experience: Mount Rushmore construction timeline
