Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, spent a portion of his youth in Omaha, attending Creighton Prepatory School for a time. Borglum studied sculpting and painting throughout the U.S. and in Paris. He gained recognition as a sculptor for his large public art projects, including a bust of Abraham Lincoln for the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
  Borglum’s first mountain-carving commission was a tribute to the Confederate Army on the side of Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.  Carving was arduous and initially done by hand, until Borglum and his engineers developed methods to blast the rock with dynamite and then refine it with jackhammers and chisels. Time delays, cost overruns and disagreements led Borglum to quit the Stone Mountain project — but not before his next mountain-carving commission was in the works.
  That next project was an even larger carving in the mountains of the Black Hills. Borglum likened the carving of Mount Rushmore to the building of the Great Pyramids; an effort that would last beyond civilization as we know it today. Borglum’s suggested theme of “Manifest Destiny,” encompassing the founding, growth, preservation and development of the nation was eventually accepted by South Dakota and Calvin Coolidge, the U.S. President in 1927, when work on the mountainside began.
  Gutzon Borglum died on March 6, 1941 before carving on Mount Rushmore was completed. His son, Lincoln, spent another season working at Mount Rushmore but left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father’s direction. Borglum’s widow reflected on why her husband chose to sculpt mountains. It was, simply, “the emotional value of volume.” For anyone who has ever gazed upon Mount Rushmore, they understand.
                                                                                       — Diane Snider
                                                                             DCHS Board Member

Sources:
Vertical Files, Douglas County Historical Society Library Archives Center