Day At Mount Rushmore

by Katy Slagel
Scholastic News
July 11, 2009

 

Editor’s Note: Katy Slagel, is a Kid Reporter for Scholastic News. She is on vacation with her family. She is her blog: My Vacation to Mount Rushmore.

We would like to know what you think? We would like to hear from you what you are doing with your family this summer dan@youngchronicle.com .

 

You can see eye to eye with these four presidents-if you are 465 feet tall!

As soon as I got home from school on that very last day, I was so excited I thought I was going to explode! My dad, step-mom, sister and I were driving all the way to South Dakota from Michigan to see Mount Rushmore.

I have always wanted to see it, and my dream came true that day. Lots and lots of packing was on the schedule, but it was totally worth it when we got there.

I was blown away when I gazed up at the carefully sculpted masterpiece. It was difficult to think that this sculpture was once a towering mountain, and that more than 400 men and women worked on the monument for 14 years. Building began in 1927 and ended in 1941. I couldn’t believe that so many people dedicated their lives to build Mount Rushmore for just $8.00 a day, which was a lot of money back then. They had to work really hard. To get to the top of the monument they had to climb 506 steps! Some did this every day.

The sculptor was Gutzon Borglum, who died the year before the carvings were finished. His son was in charge of Project Lincoln the final two years of the work.

A great deal of the sculpting was done with dynamite! More than 800 pounds of stone was blasted off the face of the mountain. Did you know that each President’s head is as tall as a six-story building? Or that each president’s nose is 20 feet long, each mouth is 18 feet wide, and their eyes are 11 feet across? As soon as I saw the four humungous presidents cut from rock, I knew exactly who they were: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

When it was time to leave Mount Rushmore, I didn’t want to go. Everything there was so fascinating! If I ever go to Mount Rushmore again, I hope we can stay there longer!

Source: Scholastic News Online