Construction of Mount Rushmore Mount Rushmore for the sculpture, since it seemed to be the easiest and most stable of the cliffs to work on. Having decided on the location of the sculpture, Borglum decided to make the monument of four presidents of the United States. He chose the two most famous presidents in American history, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. He chose Thomas Jefferson because Jefferson nearly doubled the size of the United States in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase (which included the land that became South Dakota). The last president Borglum chose was Theodore Roosevelt, suggested by President Calvin Coolidge (who insisted that
Howard Rushmore Rushmore would dine with "his wife (Frances), Roy Cohn and his girl-friend." On November 27, 1949, Rushmore published in the "Journal-American" allegations of communist infiltration of US naval vessels. Though the facts of the article were invented by Rushmore, by coincidence the FBI was conducting its own investigation on the same matter. Initially, J. Edgar Hoover thought that Rushmore had access to genuine intelligence. Hoover then had Rushmore's telephone tapped. Later in Olympia, Washington, Rushmore testified before the Canwell Committee, a state committee to investigate subversive activities at the University of Washington. Rushmore switched the subject to Washington, D.C. He