Mount Rushmore is the sort of landmark that people expect to be smaller, and then they stand beneath it and find that it is larger than they imagined. The faces of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln, each about sixty feet high, were carved into the granite between 1927 and 1941 under the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, with the help of around four hundred workers who drilled, blasted and hand-finished the stone. The monument draws millions of visitors a year, and a small fee is charged for parking.
It is also a deeply contested place. The Black Hills were promised to the Lakota in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie and taken after gold was found, a seizure the United States Supreme Court later found illegal. For many Lakota, the carving is a desecration of sacred land. A few kilometres away, the Crazy Horse Memorial, a vast mountain carving begun in 1948 and still unfinished, was started at the invitation of Lakota elder Henry Standing Bear as a counterpart. Hearing both stories gives the day more depth.
The route to the monument is part of the fun. Iron Mountain Road, US 16A, was designed by Norbeck with the monument in mind, and its pigtail bridges, curling timber spirals, and narrow granite tunnels were laid out to frame the faces as you approach. One tunnel lines up exactly with the sculpture. The road is tight and steep, with a low speed limit, and it demands both attention and patience, but it is among the great short roads of the American West.
Services are at Keystone, a lively tourist strip a few minutes away, with cafés, fuel and gift shops, and Rapid City, twenty-nine kilometres north-east, has more. The monument is busiest from late morning to mid-afternoon, so arrive early or stay for the evening lighting ceremony in summer. Bring a jacket, since the hills can be cool even in July.