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
Absaroka (proposed state) also a motivation for the proposed state, as Mount Rushmore (constructed 1927–1941) would be within Absaroka according to some plans. In a craze for state secession felt by the public, state automobile license plates bearing the name were distributed, as well as pictures of "Miss Absaroka 1939". The movement was unsuccessful and fairly short-lived. The chief record of its existence comes from the Federal Writers' Project, which included a story about the plan as an example of Western eccentricity. Absaroka (proposed state) Absaroka, (pronounced ab-SOR-o-ka) was an area in the United States, comprising parts of the states of Montana, South