Construction of Mount Rushmore Construction of Mount Rushmore The construction of Mount Rushmore National Memorial took 14 years, from 1927 to 1941. Doane Robinson of the South Dakota Historical Society wanted a monument to be built in South Dakota in order to help the economy of the state by attracting tourism. In 1923, he proposed that this monument should be built from the granite cliffs in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Senator Peter Norbeck of South Dakota approved the proposal, and federal funding helped the project. Robinson asked architect and sculptor Gutzon Borglum to sculpt and design the monument. Borglum decided to use
Oval Office and figurines are frequently displayed in the Oval Office. Abraham Lincoln has been the most common subject, in works by sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Gutzon Borglum, Adolph Alexander Weinman, Leo Cherne and others. In recent administrations, traditional busts of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin have given way to heads of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman or Dwight Eisenhower. Western bronzes by Frederic Remington have been frequent choices: Harry S. Truman displayed "Fired On"; Lyndon Johnson displayed "The Bronco Buster", as did Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Presidents Reagan and