84 Years Later: The Making of Mount Rushmore

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3. The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States. Wikipedia

American History, Alive in Stone...

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is visited by nearly three million people each year that come to marvel at the majestic beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota and learn about the birth, growth, development and preservation of the country. From the history of the first inhabitants to the diversity of America today, Mount Rushmore brings visitors face to face with the rich heritage we all share.

84 Years Later: The Making of Mount Rushmore

• TIME Photo
 

July 4, 2014

    

The memorial that immortalized four presidents took more than a decade to carve out of the rock. But on July 4th, 1930, in the early days of construction, a dedication was held for the head of George Washington.

 

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Sculptor Gutzon Borglum has marked off the rock which he will carve the likenesses of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., Aug. 15, 1927.AP

Drillers, suspended in slins fastened with cables to the winches at the top of the mountain, work on the George Washington head of the Mount Rushmore Memorial in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D. on July, 22, 1929.AP

Gutzon Borglum, American sculptor, at work on the model for Mount Rushmore in his studio near the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D. circa 1930s.Underwood & Underwood/Corbis

Gutzon Borglum seen in his studio at Rushmore is working on the model of the head of Washington, Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., circa 1930s.Underwood & Underwood/Corbis

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Sculptor Gutzon Borglum has marked off the rock which he will carve the likenesses of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in the Black Hills area of Keystone, S.D., Aug. 15, 1927. (AP)

The Danish-American sculptor Gutzon Borglum began carving the heads of four presidents out of South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore in 1927, embarking on an ambitious project to build one of America’s most iconic memorials. Today, the heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt attract more than 2 million visitors every year.

But construction was predictably laborious, and Borglum died in 1941 before he could see his project finished. His son, Lincoln Borglum, completed the sculpture later that year. Today, on the 84th anniversary of the Fourth of July dedication of Washington’s head in the early years of carving, TIME looks back at the construction of the memorial that immortalized four presidents.