Norse-American medal personnel from making dies for private medals, and was enacted after Philadelphia Mint Chief Coiner Franklin Peale had for some years run a private medals business on Mint premises, prior to his firing in 1854. Kvale hoped that his friend and fellow Minnesotan, Senator Henrik Shipstead, could persuade sculptor Gutzon Borglum to design the medal for no fee or a nominal one. Borglum, who was busy with construction at Stone Mountain in Georgia (he would later sculpt Mount Rushmore), had designed the Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar; he had no time to accept the work. Buffalo nickel designer James Earle
Solon Borglum "The Stampede of Wild Horses", which were shown at the Paris Salon in 1898 and 1899, respectively. The year 1903 was a banner one for the artist. He had a one-man show of thirty-two small sculptures at the Keppel Gallery, New York. In his ground-breaking "History of American Sculpture" published that year, Lorado Taft devoted several pages to Borglum, and he was the subject of an entire chapter in Charles Caffin’s 1903 book "American Masters of Sculpture". In 1904 Borglum won the gold medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis. Borglum received several major public commissions, including