VERY INTERESTING WHISKEY: MOUNT RUSHMORE

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

Things You Didn't Know About Mount Rushmore.

About 3 million visitors come to view Mount Rushmore—located in the Black Hills of Keystone, South Dakota—each year. The famous sculpture features four presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, carved into the granite rock face over many decades. But, the initial plans for the monument were very different. Creator and sculptor Gutzon Borglum had significantly grander ideals for the mountain, but funding issues, the pace of the work, and even Borglum's feisty personality led to a large scaling back of his original plans. There's even a half-finished "Hall of Records" carved into the mountain 800 feet above the ground, with no way to reach the secret room. Read on to find out what those early grand plans involved, and what happened to them.

The Fourth Face

Borglum wanted Mount Rushmore to become a "Shrine of Democracy," as he called it, and he wanted to carve four faces on the mountain. Three U.S. presidents seemed obvious choices: George Washington for being the first president, Thomas Jefferson for writing the Declaration of Independence and for making the Louisiana Purchase, and Abraham Lincoln for holding the country together during the Civil War.

However, there was much debate as to who the fourth face should honor. Borglum wanted Teddy Roosevelt for his conservation efforts and for building the Panama Canal, while others wanted Woodrow Wilson for leading the U.S. during World War I.

Ultimately, Borglum chose Roosevelt.

In 1937, a grassroots campaign emerged wanting to add another face to Mount Rushmore—women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony. A bill requesting Anthony was even sent to Congress. However, with money scarce during the Great Depression and WWII looming, Congress decided that only the four heads already in progress would continue.

Who Is Mount Rushmore Named After?

What many people don't know is that Mount Rushmore was named even before the four, large faces were sculpted upon it. As it turns out, Mount Rushmore was named after New York attorney Charles E. Rushmore, who had visited the area in 1885.

Rushmore was visiting South Dakota for business when he spied the large, impressive, granite peak. When he asked his guide the name of the peak, Rushmore was told, "Hell, it never had a name, but from now on we'll call the damn thing Rushmore." Charles E. Rushmore later donated $5,000 to help get the Mount Rushmore project started, becoming one of the first to give private money to the project.

Ninety Percent of Carving Done by Dynamite

The carving of four presidential faces onto Mount Rushmore was a monumental project. With 450,000 tons of granite to be removed, chisels were definitely not going to be enough. When carving first started at Mount Rushmore on October 4, 1927, Borglum had his workers try jackhammers. Like chisels, jackhammers were too slow.

After three weeks of painstaking work and too little progress, Borglum decided to try dynamite on October 25, 1927. With practice and precision, workers learned how to blast away the granite, getting within inches of what would be the sculptures' "skin."

To prep for each blast, drillers would bore deep holes into the granite. Then a "powder monkey," a worker trained in explosives, would place sticks of dynamite and sand into each of the holes, working from the bottom to the top. During the lunch break and in the evening—when all the workers were safely off the mountain—the charges would be detonated.

Entablature

Borglum had originally planned to carve more than just presidential figures into Mount Rushmore—he was going to include words as well. The words were to be a very short history of the United States, carved into the rock face in what Borglum called the Entablature. The Entablature was to contain nine historical events that occurred between 1776 and 1906, be limited to no more than 500 words, and be carved into a giant, 80-by-120-foot image of the Louisiana Purchase.

Borglum asked President Calvin Coolidge to write the words and Coolidge agreed. However, when Coolidge submitted his first entry, Borglum disliked it so much that he completely changed the wording before sending it to the newspapers. Coolidge was very upset and refused to write any more.

The location for the proposed Entablature changed a number of times, but the idea was that it would appear somewhere next to the carved images. Ultimately, the Entablature was discarded, partly because the words would not be legible from a distance and partly due to a lack of funds.

No One Died

Off-and-on for 14 years, men dangled precariously off the top of Mount Rushmore, seated in a bosun's chair and tethered only by a 3/8-inch steel wire to the top of the mountain. Most of these men carried heavy drills or jackhammers—some even carried dynamite. 

It seemed like a perfect setting for an accident. However, despite the seemingly dangerous working conditions, not a single worker died while carving Mount Rushmore. Unfortunately, however, many of the workers inhaled silica dust while working on Mount Rushmore, which led them to later die from the lung disease silicosis.​

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking