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Borglum was then working on the mammoth Confederate Memorial at Stone Mountain—he was enmeshed politically, financially, and personally with the Ku Klux Klan—and Robinson reached out because of Borglum’s experience carving portraits into granite.

He envisioned works of art that would attract car tourists and bring money to a depressed state, but when he invited Borglum to join as sculptor, the project’s tenor shifted.

Borglum first saw Rushmore a year after receiving Robinson’s letter.

But as I’ve learned while researching my upcoming history of the memorial, Mount Rushmore has come to mean something different in the 100 years since Gutzon Borglum’s hike.

When Borglum orchestrated the first dedication of Mount Rushmore in 1925, the emphasis was on “Empire,” on manifest destiny.