Vintage Photos of “Six Grandfathers” Before It Was Carved Into What Most Americans Now Call “Mount Rushmore”

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Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota. Sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum, Mount Rushmore features 60 foot sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents’ faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Although the initial concept called for each president to be depicted from head to waist, lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941. Mount Rushmore has become an iconic symbol of the United States, and attracts over three million visitors annually.

For anyone curious, here’s what Six Grandfathers looked like before they defiled it by carving a bunch of old white men into it.