Gutzon Borglum conceived of the idea of a major monument to the great U.S. presidents after a solicitation from a South Dakota State Historian to carve in the state’s Black Hills what Borglum did in Georgia with the face of Robert E. Lee. Borglum wanted to scale it up, however: not a single face, but five of them including, at his insistence, Theodore Roosevelt. Also involved in the creation were John Boland, head of the Mount Rushmore Commission and the man who kept the project financed — no easy task during the Depression — and state congressman William Williamson, who convinced President Calvin Coolidge to appropriate government money to the project.

On this day, October 31, in 1941, after fourteen years and the combined efforts of 400 laborers, Mount Rushmore was completed. No further carving took place.

During several stages of the carving, the order and inclusion of heads on the mountain changed. Congress briefly entertained the idea, brought on the floor via a bill, that Mount Rushmore should include Susan B. Anthony, but as carving had already commenced, there was no more funding for extra heads. The head of Thomas Jefferson originally began to the right of Washington, but after a year and a half it was erased — blasted off with dynamite — and moved to Washington’s left.