Who would bet against one of his acolytes suggesting we mark the 100th anniversary of Mount Rushmore by carving The Donald into the stone?
Of course in these days when everywhere you look you find confirmation bias the 45th and 47th President has been credited.
With wanting to be commemorated in South Dakota stone.
What can’t be faked though is the mad frenetic genius of its creator Gutzon Borglum.
Whose work is all over America and probably under your nose when you’re not aware of it.
As was the case in Texas with his commissioned Monument to Trail Drivers.
In front of the Texas Pioneer and Trail Drivers Memorial Hall next to the Witte Museum in San Antonio.
Stone Mountain on our mind
Now as much as our hero, the son of Danish/American polygamist parents from Utah then in the Idaho Territory, loved the common man.
He lauded great leaders.
Gutzon has his fingerprints in Stone Mountain in Georgia which the South is only too quick.
To share that it precedes and exceeds Mount Rushmore.
With the surface measuring 3 acres, larger than a football field and Mount Rushmore.
With the carving of General Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson towering 400ft and measuring 90 by 190ft.
And recessed 42ft into the mountain, with the deepest point of the carving at Lee’s elbow, 12ft to the mountain’s surface.
America’s Fab Four
For the purposes though of our paen here to Mount Rushmore the impetuous Gutzon fell out with the planners after completing Lee’s head.
And he went off to mastermind the North project in South Dakota, much like Lee had done himself when he pledged to the South.
All of which leads us to why we’re celebrating Gutzon this year in the Great American West.
Because it’s 100 years since the flag ceremony to confirm the dedication of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills as a national monument.
With the carving work officially beginning less than two years later.
With the project, often involving dynamite.
Needing almost 400 people to bring the rocky sculptures into being.
Mount Rushmore, of course, pays tribute to four legendary presidents – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.
Hail to the chiefs
But for those not on the mountain, well, they weren’t left out entirely.
And just up the road in Rapid City there are 44 American leaders commemorated.
In life-sized bronze statues are dotted throughout the city.
Earning it the nickname of ‘the City of Presidents’.
America As You Like It offers a 14-night ‘Rocky Mountain Western Heritage ‘ trip.
From £1,570 pp, including flights, one-night hotel accommodation, and 13 nights’ fully inclusive RV rental .
So you can carve it in your heart and mark the 100th anniversary of Mount Rushmore.
