Quick, name the four United States presidents sculpted by Gutzon and Lincoln Borglum onto Mount Rushmore? Rack your brain. Come on. You should know this. They’re all icons. And they’re literally 60 feet tall, in rock, staring off into the abyss that is South Dakota.

Give up?

George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. Theodore Roosevelt. Abraham Lincoln.

Here’s that photograph of a guy hanging off one of the eyeballs of the monument.

rushmore eye

According to Wikipedia, it was South Dakota historian Doane Robinson’s idea to carve famous people into the tall rock faces of the Black Hills. He thought it would lure tourists, i.e. money in the pockets of local residents and business owners. Ol’ silly Doane, however, didn’t want to feature the former commander-in-chiefs. Oh, no. He wanted to see Lewis and Clark and Buffalo Bill Cody etched up, bigger than life, in the mountain. The sculptors eventually dissuaded this idea.

Did you know that the original plans for the project had all four execs done up head to toe, rather than just their faces? Funding ran out in October 1941 and further construction was abandoned.

Here’s a model of the initial vision:

Gutzon_Borglum's_model_of_Mt._Rushmore_memorial