The Dark Side Of Mount Rushmore We Can't Ignore Anymore

Since before the United States was knee-high to a bald eagle, one person's majestic monument has been another's symbol of suffocating tyranny. Mere hours after Americans declared their independence in 1776, "a mob of soldiers and sailors" swarmed Lower Manhattan and toppled a gilded statue of King George III. Later, the dethroned metal monarch was partially melted down into 42,000 musketballs that some dubbed "melted majesty," via National Geographic, and used by Patriot soldiers against Redcoats during the War for Independence. Because, what better way to take aim at a king, than to aim him at his own army?

To the Great Sioux Nation, Mount Rushmore is the symbol of a dark, treacherous past full of stolen land, broken treaties, and a fierce fight to keep their traditional way of life in the face of an invading government. Each presidential face that was carved into the sacred Black Hills comes with its own sordid past. Each symbolizes unique slights committed toward Native peoples. Most Americans have little clue about the very real and messed up story of Mount Rushmore's past or how it has affected the indigenous people of the area into the present, and knowing the truth could forever change the way they look at the towering monument. But maybe that's a good thing.

The names most associated with Mount Rushmore are the four presidents the monument depicts: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Where "Rushmore" came from is rarely considered by tourists. While obscure in the wider public knowledge, it is confirmed that Mount Rushmore was named for Charles E. Rushmore, a New York-based attorney. Rushmore himself confirmed his namesake in a letter to a South Dakotan historian in 1925, preserved by the National Park Service.

Also so-dubbed the "Shrine of Democracy," according to History, this grand memorial was commissioned under the much less memorable President Coolidge in 1927. Four hundred men led by sculptor Gutzon Borglum removed about 900 million pounds of rock. Roughly 90 percent of the carving was done using dynamite, according to the National Park Service. That all might sound pretty straightforward. But behind those stone-faced presidents is an inaccessible room with a fascinating backstory.