Rapid City, South Dakota City had survived a boom and bust and was establishing itself as an important regional trade center for the upper midwest. Although the Black Hills became a popular tourist destination in the late 1890s, it was a combination of local efforts, the popularity of the automobile, and construction of improved highways that brought tourists to the Black Hills in large numbers after World War I. Gutzon Borglum, already a famous sculptor, began work on Mount Rushmore in 1927 and his son, Lincoln Borglum, continued the carving of the presidents' faces in rock following his father's death in 1941. The work
Solon Borglum group of the sculptor's descendants gave twenty bronzes, marbles, original plasters, portfolios of drawings and paintings to the New Britain Museum of American Art. Today the Museum houses the largest repository of Borglum's works. Borglum sculpted a larger than life bronze equestrian statue for the "Bucky O'Neill Monument, Rough Rider" at the Yavapai County Court House Plaza in Prescott, Arizona. Teddy Roosevelt had persuaded Buckey O'Neill to join the Rough Riders and he was killed at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Borglum's statue "Cowboy at Rest" is also located on the grounds of the Yavapai County Court House in