Today is
Washington's Birthday, also known as Presidents' Day, a federal holiday held on
the third Monday of February. This day honors presidents of the United States,
including George Washington, the USA's first president.
This day also celebrates the past presidents who have lead our country.
We thought we would take a look back at a few presidents that continue to have
a long lasting role in history and whose faces are seen every day in the
mountains of Mount Rushmore. This National Memorial is a sculpture carved
into the mountain, a granite formation in the Black Hills in Keystone,South Dakota, United States. This National Memorial features
60-foot sculptures of the heads of four United States Presidents. Those
familiar faces are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and
Abraham Lincoln. This national destination got its name in 1884, when New
York attorney Charles Rushmore asked his guide about the name of a certain mountain.
The guide jokingly replied, “It hasn’t gotten one, so we’ll call the thing
Rushmore.”
We
decided to dig a little deeper and learn some more facts about Mount Rushmore:
-The men who carved Mount Rushmore were mostly miners who had come to Black Hills in search of gold- they knew little about carving a mountain.
-On average, Mount Rushmore hosts nearly three million visitors a year
-It took 14 years and 400 men to carve the mountain.
-The faces of Mount Rushmore are 60 feet high. That’s the same size as a six story building.
-Over 90% of Mount Rushmore was carved using dynamite. The blasts removed approximately 450,000 tons of rock.
While working on this masterpiece, Dynamite, jackhammers, and hand chisels were used to carve the faces and add details. Did you know that Jackhammer housings have been made from ADI since the 1980’s??
For more information on Mount Rushmore and to learn more facts like the ones above check out: http://bit.ly/1U4AK8x