Stone Mountain Klan, was commissioned to do the carving. Borglum abandoned the project in 1925 (and later went on to begin Mount Rushmore). The US Mint issued a 1925 Commemorative silver US half dollar, bearing the words "Stone Mountain", as part of a fundraiser for the monument. This was the largest issue of commemorative coins by the U.S. government up to that time. American sculptor Augustus Lukeman continued until 1928, when further work stopped for thirty years. In 1941 segregationist Governor Eugene Talmadge formed the Stone Mountain Memorial Association (SMMA) to continue work on the memorial, but the project was delayed once
Construction of Mount Rushmore at least there be two Republicans and at least one Democrat represented) because of Theodore Roosevelt's introduction of the National Park Service. Borglum's original design was a sculpture of each president intended to go down to their waists, but time constraints and funding only provided for their heads. Ivan Houser, father of John Sherrill Houser, was assistant sculptor to Gutzon Borglum during the early years of carving; he began working with Borglum shortly after the inception of the monument and was with Borglum for a total of seven years. When Houser left Gutzon to devote his talents to his own