The park’s main promenade, studded with flags of every U.S. state and territories, leads to the Grand View Terrace with perhaps the best views of the presidents. But their enormous faces pop through the tree clusters of ponderosa pines, aspen and cottonwood at the base of the mountain along the Presidential Trail. The 0.6-mile loop includes 422 stairs, steep at some points, as stairwells both ascend and descend the sloping mountainside. At one end of the trail, the actual Sculptor’s Studio used by Borglum from 1939-1941 remains and today houses the monument’s original 1/12th scale plaster model. The Visitor Center has a comprehensive collection of excavation tools and photographs while detailing how some 400 workers blasted and carved away 450,000 tons of rock with few injuries and no deaths. While it’s apparent to most of us why the faces include Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, many may not know the true significance of why Roosevelt’s likeness joins them. Washington is there because he was the first leader of the new nation; Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and noted for expanding America’s borders through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803; and Lincoln for preserving the Union during the Civil War. Roosevelt was chosen for creating the National Park Service and helping preserve this nation’s great outdoors.
They stare with stoic faces and eyes locked, imposing and enduring. Seeing the four presidents on Mount Rushmore never gets old as it represents our patriotic pride—even in times of political turmoil. While it’s always been a popular place to visit on the Fourth of July, the memorial’s Independence Day, celebration this year will be even more exciting as the nation honors its 250th anniversary. The National Park Service is planning a massive fireworks display to dazzle the night sky on July 3rd along with live music and a special video program. Within South Dakota’s Black Hills National Forest, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial was carved into the mountainside’s fine-grained granite—rock that will endure through the millennia, eroding only an inch every 10,000 years. Started in 1927 to boost the region’s tourism, it took renowned sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s team 14 years to blast and chisel the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, each about 60 feet tall. The Dakotas Celebrate July 4 A New Presidential Library and Fireworks Mark the Country’s 250th Birthday Feature and Photos By Richard Varr
It took 14 years to blast and chisel the faces of the presidents, each of which is about 60 feet tall
THE DAKOTAS CELEBRATE JULY 4
COAST TO COAST MAGAZINE SUMMER 2026 | 13
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