KEYSTONE, S.D. — From his real estate developments to his golf courses, President Donald Trump is known for adding his name to his properties. Now, some of his supporters want to add his likeness to one of the most iconic monuments in the country: Mount Rushmore.
Just days after Trump took office for his second term, one of his supporters in Congress introduced a bill to do just that. While the legislation from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., has not advanced in the Capitol, there is an even more difficult challenge ahead for the bill: Even if the measure passed, the famous mountain does not have enough rock that is suitable to be carved for Trump’s — or anyone else’s — face.
“It comes down to the geology, the engineering,” said Paul Nelson, a retired engineer who oversaw the rock monitoring system at Mount Rushmore. “It just can’t be done.”
The mountain’s physical limitations were well known to lead sculptor Gutzon Borglum, as he and his son had to adapt their plans to what was feasible with the stone during construction of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota’s Black Hills from 1927 to 1941. Before he had even finished, Borglum wrote in May 1936 that the “stone limitations are so serious, that I doubt if it would be possible to change the composition, which is fixed, in any way to include a fifth head.”
That has not stopped supporters of Trump from floating the idea of his head on the monument.
“Well, they certainly have room for it there,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump on her Fox News show when she asked whether Trump could be on Mount Rushmore one day.
The National Park Service declined to comment.
Trump himself weighed in on the idea in August 2020, denying a report that White House aides had reached out to then-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s office about the process to add presidents to the monument. (Noem is now Trump’s homeland security secretary.)
“Never suggested it although, based on all of the many things accomplished during the first 3 1/2 years, perhaps more than any other Presidency, sounds like a good idea to me!” Trump said on what was then called Twitter.
Trump is not the first president to have his supporters believe he should be physically represented on par with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
After Ronald Reagan’s death in 2004, there were efforts to memorialize him on the monument. And even before Mount Rushmore was completed, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt advocated for adding suffragist Susan B. Anthony.
“It’s a wonderful thing to speculate about, who could or should be on Mount Rushmore, but it can’t be done,” said Dan Wenk, who was the superintendent at Mount Rushmore for more than a decade. “Would you add another figure to da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper?’ I don’t think so. You don’t change great art.”
Wenk said that while it may look like there is space next to Lincoln or Washington, the rock is “not suitable for carving,” as it is “very fractured, it’s very soft.”
That has been true since the beginning. Carving for Jefferson’s face initially started to Washington’s left but had to be moved to his right to find stone that was acceptable. Any new carving could jeopardize the already present fractures, Nelson said.
“And so if you’re going to do any other carvings on the surface, you have to remove a lot of rock to get down to the competent rock, and you run the risk of maybe mobilizing some fractures,” he said. “So, no, I wouldn’t want to be messing with Mount Rushmore.”
Aside from the physical capabilities, some of the 2 million tourists per year who visit the monument recently shared their views about who is worthy of being included in the sculpture.
“I think history is going to show that he’s in the same pantheon,” Robert Thomas, a tourist from Missouri, said of Trump.
“I just think it’s a little ridiculous,” said another tourist, Susan Davis. “Tell him to get his own mountain, carve his own image on it.”
Wenk, though, emphasized that “at the end of the day, it can’t be done.”
“It doesn’t matter how worthy someone is — if the rock is not there, you can’t carve them.”
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