Visitors from around the globe stand in reverence in the shadows of America’s Shrine of Democracy, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt once called Mt. Rushmore. The visitors speak in hushed tones as if in a church as they gaze at the granite sculptures of four of the nation’s legendary leaders.
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They have come to salute one of America’s most recognizable icons and four of our most notable presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt — as Mt. Rushmore National Memorial was cast in the spotlight by last year’s movie “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.”.
Whether they are movie stars, moguls, immigrants or laborers, few who visit this colossal carving on a pine-clad cliff in the middle of America leave unaffected.
“These sculptures represent America, and their backdrop is the sacred Black Hills,” said Mt. Rushmore Supt. Gerard Baker, one of the few Native American park superintendents in the country. (His brother Paige Baker is superintendent at nearby Badlands National Park.)
“Visitors are affected by this place, this solitude, which cannot be found in the halls of Congress or the many monuments of Washington, D.C. You find it here because of this beautiful natural cathedral and this powerful monument,” Gerard Baker said.
Baker, a 6-foot-5 gentle giant who has spent the last 30 years at National Park Service posts in nine states, conceded that his heart is drawn to the Black Hills of South Dakota. As a Mandan-Hidatsa and a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation), all of whom once used the Black Hills for hunting and ceremonies, Baker noted that this ancient mountain range is special for many reasons.
“The most moving thing for me is seeing a visitor look up at this Shrine of Democracy and watch the silent tears fall from their solemn face,” he said. “You can see in their eyes, and feel in their persona, how much they love this country and treasure their freedoms.”
Even time has not yet dulled the personal impression this mountain memorial has on Baker.
“I have been here for almost four years, and every time I come around that curve in the morning and see the presidents on this mountain, I feel that in my gut,” he said. “It’s humbling, and it stirs me. I am so glad to be here. This is a dream come true.”
The memorial was carved from the ageless granite of the Black Hills between 1927 and 1941 by sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who sought to preserve in stone the attributes of four presidents who contributed so much to the birth, growth, preservation and development of the United States.
George Washington symbolized the birth of a nation conceived in liberty and refused a crown, opting instead for a representative government elected by the people. Thomas Jefferson was selected not for his authorship of the Declaration of Independence but for his purchase of the Louisiana Territory, which more than doubled the size of the young republic.
The Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, was a natural choice, selected for the ultimate sacrifice he made in keeping the nation intact in the throes of the Civil War. Theodore Roosevelt, who had been dead only eight years when Borglum chose him as the final member of the illustrious group, drew heavy criticism when scholars said history had not yet had ample time to judge his presidency. Roosevelt was picked, not as the “trust-buster” or the conservation president, but for his completion of the Panama Canal, which allowed the United States to exert its naval influence on a world stage.
Even today, nearly 70 years after Borglum died and the drilling and blasting stopped at Mt. Rushmore, the memorial is a place where many tales are told. Its night lighting ceremony, coupled with a ranger talk and patriotic film, is among the most popular Park Service programs anywhere.
“As one American Indian person told me, ‘What better place to come and heal than Mt. Rushmore?'” Baker said. “Mt. Rushmore has many stories. This is the story of America.”
Spreading the word
Baker has worked to expand the interpretive offerings at the memorial, providing visitors with unfettered access to members of the Plains Indian tribes who visit the memorial, set up their tepees and tell their personal stories, as well as the heritage of their tribes.
“Over the last three years, we’ve hosted representatives of every tribe and subtribe of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota, and virtually every tribe in the nation — the Hopis, the Navajos, the Pawnees as well as tribes from Canada,” he said proudly. “This provides an opportunity to reflect on the diverse cultural heritage of our nation, and visitors greet these stories with open arms and open ears. They are hungry for more.”
America’s appetite for one of its best-kept secrets, the Black Hills, was whetted last year with the release of “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” in which stars Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight and Helen Mirren travel the world in search of answers to an age-old mystery. Several of the movie’s scenes were filmed at Mt. Rushmore and other locations in the Black Hills.
In fact, when the director and producers arrived on location, they rewrote portions of the script to allow for more filming with the Black Hills as a stunning backdrop. After shooting on location in Washington, Paris and London, all three stars told media outlets from New York to Australia that they were astonished by what they discovered in the Black Hills.
“That was my favorite location because you can really see in that countryside why the Native Americans thought that was sacred ground,” Cage told one newspaper. “There was a symmetry and harmony to the nature there, and these very still pools of water. It doesn’t seem real, it’s so gorgeous. I felt an incredible sense of peace out there, and I would encourage any families, if they want to go traveling, to explore that, especially if they’re interested in camping and hiking.”
Before “National Treasure” began shooting at Mt. Rushmore, Baker performed a “smudging ceremony” for the cast and crew, a blessing he said was intended to keep them safe while filming.
“As is the case with the majority of our visitors, these stars, each of whom has traveled the globe, were affected by this place,” Baker said, smiling. “Helen Mirren almost came to tears talking to me about Mt. Rushmore.”
In their off hours, Baker said, the film’s cast and crew explored the Black Hills, a million-acre playground filled with its own national treasures. In a mountain range roughly the size of Delaware, some 4 million annual visitors encounter what is arguably the highest concentration of parks, monuments and memorials in the world, as well as dozens of private attractions touting everything from raptors, rattlesnakes and reptiles to mountain lions, wolves and grizzly bears.
Underground wilderness
Far below the ponderosa pine forests and grassy mountain meadows of the Black Hills lies an underground wilderness so vast that contemporary explorers are only now beginning to understand its scope and complexity.
In an age when orbiting satellites have mapped the topography of the Earth’s surface, from the tallest mountain peaks to its deepest watery recesses, the subterranean labyrinths of the Black Hills have become some of the last bastions of mystery in an uncharted terrain.
The first cave ever protected by the federal government, Wind Cave National Park, is in the southern Black Hills. Its companion, Jewel Cave National Monument, is 19 miles north near the town of Custer. Both NPS units offer visitors a variety of caving tours for all skill levels.
With 140 miles of explored passageways, Jewel Cave ranks as second-longest in the world. Wind Cave, with 127.1 miles of explored corridor, ranks as fourth-longest. But, in reality, no one truly knows where their passages end. In fact, studies indicate that mapped passageways constitute less than 5 percent of what actually exists in these two caves.
“Caves are one of the last frontiers on the planet,” said Jewel Cave Supt. Todd Suess. “We’ve mapped the ocean floor, but we probably have thousands of miles of cave passages that we have not yet found. Caves are a whole other world. Rarely do we get to explore the underground wilderness, a world that is always under our feet.”
As many as 80,000 visitors enter the 49-degree Jewel Cave during a typical year, taking part in tours ranging from nature talks and lantern walks to four-hour Wild Cave adventures. Along the way, cavers are treated to some of the most rare cave specimens in the world, as well as more common stalactites, stalagmites and calcite crystals. Dozens of exceedingly rare hydromagnesite balloons, “fragile, silvery little bubbles” that would pop from the mere touch of a finger, are found within Jewel and Wind Caves.
“Imagine, we may have seen as little as 5 percent of the caves so far,” Suess said. “As world-class caves, we want to preserve and protect them, and by knowing where they are, it helps us do that.”
Badlands, good tours
Flanking the eastern slope of the Black Hills stands Badlands National Park, a 244,000-acre moonscape that the native Lakota called “mako sica,” or “land bad,” a couple of centuries before white men first gazed upon it. When Gen. George Armstrong Custer first encountered the Badlands, he described them as “hell with the fires burned out.”
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With ragged ridgelines, chiseled spires and deep canyons ravaged by eons of wind and rain, this may be the most unusual terrain in the world. And its air is among the cleanest.
On the opposite side of the Black Hills, which spill over into extreme northeastern Wyoming, stands Devils Tower National Monument. This core of an ancient volcano exposed by millions of years of erosion had its own time in the limelight with Steven Spielberg’s 1977 release of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” starring Richard Dreyfuss.
Far earlier, Devils Tower was designated America’s first national monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.
American Indian legends tell of a giant bear that chased young maidens up a rock, leaving its claw marks in the ancient stone tower. Today, the tower is a favorite among experienced rock climbers.
The spirit of the Lakota
Nearly six decades after sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began carving the massive tribute to the legendary Lakota warrior known as Crazy Horse, his widow, Ruth, and seven of their 10 children carry on the work.
In 1948, Chief Henry Standing Bear asked Ziolkowski to create Crazy Horse Memorial, saying, “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes too.” When completed, the colossal 641-foot-wide, 563-foot-tall statue will rank as the largest work of art in the world and will depict Crazy Horse pointing over the head of his stallion to the sacred Black Hills.
The mission of the memorial, which honors the culture, tradition and living heritage of all Native Americans, recently was bolstered by a $5 million grant from South Dakota philanthropist T. Denny Sanford.
Crazy Horse will mark the 60th anniversary of the first dynamite blast on the mountain on June 3. The memorial also will pay homage to the late sculptor on what would have been his 100th birthday, Sept. 6, the date that Crazy Horse was killed in 1877.
Thundering hooves
Just 20 minutes south of Crazy Horse, east of the town of Custer, is the “crown jewel” of South Dakota and home to one of the largest bison herds on earth.
The 110-square-mile Custer State Park is so impressive that it likely would have been another national park if the state had not beaten the feds to the punch in 1919.
The park’s scenic drives, including Iron Mountain Road and the Needles Highway, wind through ponderosa pine forests and pass giant finger-like granite spires that rise like sentinels from the forest floor.
Along the routes, motorists encounter gurgling streams, alpine lakes and mountain tunnels that perfectly frame the faces on Mt. Rushmore.
Visitors also discover four mountain resorts, campgrounds, naturalist programs, hiking trails, outstanding rock climbing, horseback riding and the largest bison herd outside of Yellowstone National Park.
Custer State Park is home to an estimated 1,500 American bison, as well as elk, antelope, deer, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, mountain lion, wild turkey and prairie dogs.
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IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
The Black Hills are in extreme southwestern South Dakota and can be reached via Interstate Highway 90. The region is served by Rapid City Regional Airport, with direct daily flights from Chicago. For flight information, visit www.rapairport.org.
AREA ATTRACTIONS
Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, 605-574-2523; www.nps.gov/moru. Crazy Horse Memorial, 605-673-4681; www.crazyhorse.org. Badlands National Park, 605-433-5361; www.nps.gov/badl. Devils Tower National Monument, 307-467-5283; www.nps.gov/deto. Wind Cave National Park, 605-745-4600; www.nps.gov/wica. Jewel Cave National Monument, 605-673-2288; www.nps.gov/jeca.
INFORMATION
Rapid City Convention and Visitors Bureau provides information on special events, local and regional attractions, package vacations and a downloadable visitor guide; 800-487-3223; www.visitrapidcity.com. Black Hills Central Reservations offers all-inclusive travel packages complete with airline, lodging, rental car and activities; 866-329-7566; www.blackhillsvacations.com. Other sites with travel information include www.blackhillsbadlands.com and www.travelsd.com.