Happy Presidents' Day! Incredible archive photos of how one of America's greatest landmarks was built
Construction on Mount Rushmore began on October 4, 1927 in the Black Hills, sacred land to the Lakota Sioux.
Mount Rushmore's design was based off of a blaster model, which was housed at a studio on site.
The majority of the work to construct the mountain was done by dynamite.
Approximately 90% of the carving was done via detonation, to expose more workable stone beneath.
Sticks of dynamite would be prepared to specialty sizes for blasting certain rocks and impediments out of the way.
After controlled blasting, workers used jackhammers to honeycomb the granite. This weakened the remaining rock enough that three to six inches of rock could be removed by hand to reveal the final carving surface.
Blacksmiths on the site would be constantly on hand to prepare and sharpen steel drills. A smith could sharpen upwards of 400 drills a day.
Workers throughout the carving process would routinely work from a bosun chair — a sling-like harness that was lowered from the top of the mountain on 3/8 inch thick steel cables.
Here, a sculptor using a bosun chair attends to maintenance of Lincoln's nose.
Throughout the process, Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor responsible for the overall vision of Mount Rushmore, supervised workers and checked their progress.
Originally, Mount Rushmore was envisioned as depicting each president from head to waste. But a lack of funding caused the construction to end early.
As such, the monument continues to stand today with only President Washington's torso at all defined.
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