An Old Timey Podcast - 20: Wait… Does Mount Rushmore Suck? (Part 3)

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

There are so many reasons why Mount Rushmore National Monument *shouldn’t* exist. Right from the start, there was opposition. Environmentalists called the proposed monument a desecration. Native Americans rightly asserted that the Black Hills — and specifically the Six Grandfathers Mountain (aka Mount Rushmore) — was their property. But that didn’t stop Gutzon Borglum, or his circle of high-powered supporters. Together, they pushed forward. They even manipulated a president! Thanks to a mix of hubris, luck, and money, Mount Rushmore National Monument began to take shape. Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: The book, “The Carving of Mount Rushmore,” by Rex Alan Smith The documentary, “Mount Rushmore” “The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore,” by Matthew Shaer for Smithsonian Magazine “Biography: Gutzon Borglum,” PBS.org “The heartbreaking, controversial history of Mount Rushmore,” by Amy McKeever for National Geographic “Why Native Americans Have Protested Mount Rushmore,” by Jodi Rave for History.com “Are treaties perpetual? United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians,” by Reid Benson for teachingamericanhistory.org “The largest mass execution in US history,” Death Penalty Information Center The video, “The dark history of Mount Rushmore,” for TedEd.com “BIOGRAPHY: Native Americans and Mount Rushmore,” PBS.org “United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians,” Encyclopedia of the Great Plains Are you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts! Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And they call me Normie C, and I'm Horneau for DeJorno. Oh no, you leave that pizza alone! And on this episode, Mount Rushmore gets its nasty start. Nasty. Woo-woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

Yeah. Whoever built Mount Rushmore was also Horno for DeJourneau. It's possible. It's possible that we could have avoided this whole calamity by just giving him a dejorno pizza. A frozen pizza? That's right. Very cool.

Speaking of Mount Rushmore, uh-huh. Someone on our subreddit, R slash old-timey podcast, uh-huh. They mentioned that you've talked about Gutson Borglum already. Okay, this is the wildest thing. Back on let's go to court.

You've talked about them. People have said that I talked about my love for Lucille Ball. on let's go to court. Yep. And that I talked about guts in Borglam. Yep. You've talked about my testicles. Okay, that's enough.

These are amazing discoveries to me because I don't listen to myself half the time. But to have people actually really paying attention is quite the deal. And the person said that I mentioned guts and Borglum and I said I thought he was full of shit. Do you still feel that way? Absolutely. Get out of here. Yeah, it was kind of cool. feels like destiny for you to talk about Gutsen Borgheim.

This podcast was meant to be. It was. It's the best podcast that's ever been created on the face of this earth. You got that right. I'm channeling my inner Gutson. And it's all thanks to last week's episode that we have the greatest podcast on Earth. Because we were able to get Judge Judy on the show, Kristen. And guess what?

We secured an additional 10,000 new patrons. That did not happen. but we did have a lot of people who were thrilled by the Judge Judy appearance. Yeah. Bye. But bad news, her appearance fee, it was $200,000. So we are in the red right now. Uh-huh.

And construction of our new shower has been canceled. Don't even fucking joke, Norman. Everyone, if you're at home doing the math, how long have we been without a shower? Maybe two and a half months. It's been a while. I swear to Pete, I'm never setting foot in another bathtub for the rest of my life. Once this shower is completed, bathtubs are dead to me. What about a hot tub?

Okay, I'll make an exception. Okay. But no bathtubs ever again. Don't worry, Kristen, I have an idea. All we have to do to get that money back, if we get our Patreon evaluated, and people will know just how amazing of a deal it is to sign up and support this show. I would love to know how you plan to evaluate our Patreon. Well, I'm about to tell you, I'm excited to bring in Professor Hubert Montgomery of the Antiques Road Show.

He's going to take a look at our Patreon and give it an evaluation. Everyone, Norm just left the room. Uh, I'm not a betting woman, but I'd wager to bet that Hubert Montgomery is a made-up person. I'd also like to say that Norm is very good at these Patreon plugs. A little too good, maybe. I thought I was really creative and funny, doing my little Hitler impression a few weeks ago. He's bringing in sounds. This is taking a very long time.

Oh my gosh. Hi, Norm. Hello. I'm... Oh, I'm sorry, Hubert Montgomery. My name is Dr. Hubert Montgomery. Thank you. It's very nice to meet you. How are you doing today? I'm doing quite well, thank you.

Mm, yes. First, I'd just like to say how stunning you look, Kristen. Oh, thank you. Look at those big, pleasant hooters. I really like that mustache. It looks very real. Thank you. Your husband must be a lucky boy.

He's actually a full-grown man. Thank you. Mm, indeed. Thank you for giving me the privilege of gazing upon this wonderful piece you've brought in. This is the Patreon of an old-timey podcast. Indeed it is. It's located at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Is that correct?

That's correct, yes. It's a stunning example of incredible value, and it all goes towards supporting an independent podcast. It's wonderful, just wonderful. Thank you so much. Kristen, I'd like you to focus your attention on these three tiers you have here. As you see here, the first tier is called a non-term. non-threatening fan. And on this tier, patrons get access to monthly bonus episodes of an old-timey podcast with full video, the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Let's Go to Court, and access to a highly entertaining Discord chat room. Everyone, Norm's wearing a blazer that I've not seen him wear in years.

Excuse me, Dr. Hubert Montgomery. He's also wearing a baseball hat that's supporting crime writers on, which is a very good podcast. I'm sorry. to interrupt you, Hubert, please continue. Yes. Now, if I were to evaluate this tier at auction, adventure it would sell for easily $1,000. But an old-timey podcast is offering this tier at only $5. Wow, they must be really stupid.

Amazing deal. Let's turn our attention to the second tier. It's known as History Ho. That always gives me a chuckle. Imagine calling yourself a ho. This tier offers everything from the previous tier, plus a signed thank you card and sticker, and access to a monthly YouTube watch party. Kristen, if I were to evaluate this tier at auction, it would sell for $25,000.

Wow. Oh my gosh. But an old-timey podcast is only asking for $7 to join this tier. A bargain. Huber, your accent kind of comes and goes, I've noticed. I'm from all over the world. Don't worry. And now we come to the best part of this stunning Patreon,

the pig butter investor. You know, I was able to sample some pig butter on toast the other morning. It was quite delectable, but a little sour. A little bit sour. On this year, patrons get everything from the previous tiers, plus early ad-free episodes of an O-Tomie podcast with full video of every episode and 10% off old merchandise.

What an absolutely delightful. tier, at auction the pig butter investor would easily go. How is that mustache attached to your face? A million dollars. But if you can believe it, this tier is being sold at only $10. I must say, you and your husband are complete fools to price it that cheap. Patrons are getting an incredible deal. Yeah.

Well, thank you again for having me on the show. You have a wonderful Patreon, and if you, the listener, would like to get involved, please visit patreon.com slash outtimey podcast there'll be in lots of incredible perks in supporting an independently produced podcast thank you so much for having me Kristen oh thank you for dropping by

do you have any questions for me Dr. Hubert Montgomery I'd like to repeat my earlier question which is how is that fake mustache attached to your face right now? This is a real mustache. Okay Yeah

well I do admire it Thank you. Tudaloo now. Goodbye. Bye. Well, everyone, that was quite a treat. It's not often that a member of the Antiques Road Show shows up on your podcast and plugs your Patreon for you. That was really quite special. Clearly, we're doing really, really unique stuff on this podcast, and we're all very lucky to be part of it.

Hey, Norm. Oh, hey. Sorry. Did I miss Dr. Hubert Montgomery? Ph.D. Yeah. Yeah, that was really too bad. What did he value our Patreon at?

Well, he evaluated each tier individually, which was kind of an odd move, but he... In fairness, I got kind of nervous. I get nervous anytime someone switches from British to American, you know, depending on the word. So I got a little sketched out. Also, he was wearing a very old blazer with shorts. So I'm not so sure we were dealing with the top brass. He sounds really sexy. You know, there was something about him.

that I liked. Well, I hope that really helps get some more sign-ups for the Patreon. I don't see how it wouldn't, frankly. Shall we get into this episode? I think we should. Did that plug take way too long? No, I mean, a full episode of the Antiques Road Show is usually like an hour, so that was just a couple minutes, really.

That's right. Okay, are you ready? I'm ready. Let's hear about Gutson, building Mount Rushmore. You need a voice thingy? Well, first I was going to ask, do you have any mistakes of shame? No. Do you?

I don't either. Wow. Ooh. Off the hook this week. All right. Hit me with that previously on. Previously on an old-timey podcast. We learned about Gutson Borglum's failed attempt to create a Confederate monument on Stone Mountain.

When he started that project, he'd envisioned it as his magnum opus, the thing that was. the thing that would cement him in the history books forever. Instead, the project was marred by money troubles and infighting and ended with Gutson destroying his work, fleeing the scene, and praying like hell that he wouldn't get extradited back to Georgia. And that's how. At 57 years old, Gutson found himself deeply in debt and running from the law. But he wasn't one to give up, especially not on himself.

He'd been in talks with Don Robinson, a South Dakota state historian who'd been impressed by Gutson's work on Stone Mountain and hoped that South Dakota could have a similar monument of its own. So with the Stone Mountain Project in shambles, the South Dakota Project became Gutson's lifeline. In this episode, the work begins! For some, the work was carving gigantic faces onto a mountain. Right. For some, the work was being around guts and Borglum and not punching him in the face. Ooh. And for some, the work was a battle to save sacred, stolen land from a bunch of weird white dudes who wanted to desecrate it.

Here we go! Man, this is just full of problems. Are you ready for some problems, baby? Yep. Picture it. T'was the mid-1920s, and Done Robinson was a nerd. with a dream. Yes, he wanted to finish his encyclopedia on the history of South Dakota, but more importantly, he wanted famed mountain sculptor Gutsen Borglum to pop over to South

Dakota and carve up what would hopefully become a massive tourist attraction. Donne had originally envisioned a monument that would honor the heroes of the American West. Maybe Lewis and Clark, maybe Saka Jua. Oh. Maybe Chief Red Cloud. Yeah. But Gutson wasn't OKKKK with that. So in one of their early meetings, he convinced Donne that the way to secure national funding

was to create a monument that would honor iconic American presidents. Ooh, okay. Done was sold. You're acting like you're reacting to this idea in real time. I am. You are not Donne Robinson. You've not written shit about South Dakota. Well, I am curious if, like, when he was like, hey, let's do presidents.

I wonder if they, like, came up with their own lists. Like, ooh, well, let me pick four, and then you'll pick four. Oh, you think that's the way it works when you work with Gutson Borglam? Interesting. No, I guess not. Stay tuned, Norm. Don was sold, but his efforts to get that dream approved by the state were kind of rough. Local leadership said that the idea sounded expensive, impractical, and also bad.

Well, how many people were living in South Dakota at this time? Very good question. Not a lot. So probably not a lot of revenue happening in the state. So, yeah, putting all their money into a big dump monument seems really bad. It's a really bad idea, I would say. Yeah. But Don's secret weapon was Senator Peter Norbeck.

Peter was powerful and persuasive, and with his help, the state government warmed to the idea, but only a little. The truth was, a state bill to get moving on this project had been defeated twice. It passed barely on the third try and was signed by an unenthusiastic governor. Oh, why didn't he veto it? I guess he wanted to get elected again, huh? He was convinced and then later regretted it. Hindsight, huh? Yeah.

But you know what? Those regrets don't matter because they had a green light. A very dim green light. Did the governor have a no regrets tattoo above his butt? Every governor has a tramp stamp that they're ashamed of. Just ask your governor. Yep. The state didn't want to throw any money.

at the project necessarily, but they were like, okay, you can, you can explore this. How much money are we talking here? Well, at the moment, zero dollars. Okay. That will change. So, Don and Senator Norbeck and some other dudes began to talk more seriously with the now infamous Gutson Borglum. May I interject real quick?

Yeah. Is this guy's name really Done? D-O-N-E? D-O-A-N-E. Oh, God, I knew you'd ask, and I forgot the story. His, I think his real name was Jonah, but it was one of those things where, like, a little sibling had trouble pronouncing his name. And so then, like, his nickname became Dome. And then, like, it just stuck. You know, sometimes nicknames do that.

Yeah. That's why everyone calls me T-Bone. That's right. That's why I'm called Normie C. That's right. Yeah. Calling me Norm, it's not cool enough. A man like you needs something really cool, like a fake mustache and a very old blazer and a nickname like Normy C.

I don't know what you're talking about. Neither do you mean old blazer and fake mustache. What are you talking about? How old is that blazer, Norm? Well, sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. But if I did know what you were talking about, it was purchased at a consignment store about 12, years ago. So it's probably from the 70s. It was way longer ago than that. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to ask whoever you're talking about about the blazer. Yeah. Okay. Because it's not mine.

So they're talking with Gutson. The truth was that Gutson needed this job. He needed a take-to-electric boogaloo on his magnum opus. And a big national monument might be just the thing to reclaim his reputation and get revenge on those stone mountain assholes. But those stone mountain assholes weren't done with Gutson. They couldn't believe what he'd done. They couldn't believe that he'd run from the law. And when they heard that the people of South Dakota were considering hiring Gutson Borglum to carve up yet another mountain while they knew what they needed to do, they had to intervene.

It would be great if Gutson was like, if he really wanted to start, smear it in their face. Uh-huh. Just do... Smear it in their face. Smear it. Do a monument to like black leaders in South Dakota. Oh, that would really do it.

Oh, man. Those... But Gutson was too racist for that. I know. This is my alternate universe. But yeah, yeah. I mean, if you really want to get revenge on these Confederates, absolutely. And it's like, okay, it's a spite monument technically, but it's still cool, right?

Very fitting that you would want a spite monument. monument. Just a gigantic Harriet Tubman looming over Stone Mountain. Yeah. Love to see it. So the Stone Mountain Monumental Association got together and they drafted a strongly worded letter all about how Gutson sucked. They made a ton of copies of that letter. They sent them out to everyone who they deemed to be influential in the state of South Dakota. The letter started out with, hey guys, I don't usually write letters like this, but I... Norm, your YouTube is showing. Yeah, I know.

The thumbnail is just you crying. Yeah. This needs to be said. Oh, that's so good. Oh, you've been lied to. Oh! That's a great title. Yeah, that's the opening line right there.

Yep. Sure enough, those letters landed in all the right places. But when the people of South Dakota actually read the letter, gosh, the message didn't quite land the way the Stone Mountain people had hoped. See, the Stone Mountain people had written a lot about Guts and Borglum, but they'd also written a lot about themselves. About how awesome the Confederacy was. Here's what they wrote.

See, the Stone Mountain people figured that if they let everyone know how important they were, then the people receiving that letter would take it more seriously. Yeah, they'd go, whoa, these people are a big deal. Yeah, so they listed their occupations, their accomplishments, their famous ancestors. Did I say ancestors weird? Anchesters. They listed those, too. The way you said that made me think of when Trump was president.

He was given some speech, and he ended it with, God bless the United States. And God bless the United Shesh. That's your favorite thing. It is my favorite. I think his dentures were falling out or something. Well, sure. But United Shesh is very fun. It is fun for the president to mess up the name of the country.

Yes. Anyway, continue. So this to me is all about cultural differences. You know, the Southerners, they thought they needed to really prop themselves up and be like, look at my lofty heritage. But that just didn't really fly in South Dakota. You already mentioned South Dakota was not super densely populated. A lot of the people who received these letters, you know, they hadn't been there for generations necessarily.

No. Had they all come from northern states and they're like, confederacy? Well, I'm sure there was a bit of that. but I think more importantly, it was a more blue-collar crowd. And they read this and they just thought it was kind of cringy. They didn't respect the Southern Bells? They didn't like being talked down to. Ah, I see.

It's interesting. So in the book, The Carving of Mount Rushmore, Rex Allen Smith, I think is the author, he talked about how a lot of the people who received that letter had immigrated from Europe. You know, they're working in mines. They're doing kind of hard labor. And they'd been trying to get away from the aristocracy of Europe. So this move by the Stone Mountain people just rubbed them absolutely the wrong way.

Yeah, that makes sense. To them, the Stone Mountain people sounded snobby, kind of childish. And it made them think, well, no wonder Gutson didn't get along with these people. I wouldn't get along with them either. And so, weirdly, even though like 12 seconds earlier, a ton of people in South Dakota had been like, carving a mountain is stupid. All of a sudden they were like, hmm, carving a mountain doesn't seem so bad. Maybe we can stick it to these southern douchebags.

Now, Norm, I ask you. Do you think that a group of people who believed in the Confederacy were willing to do the classy thing and move on? Oh, definitely not. Where's that hell no song? Hell no to the no, no, no, hell to the no. When word got back to the Stone Mountain people that their letter hadn't landed quite how they'd hoped, they tried again. This time, even harder. No, this doesn't work on you.

YouTube, when you make the first video, that's got to be it. You can't do another one. It's not as effective. Yeah. What about a follow-up that's even longer than the first one? There are some things I forgot to mention in that first video. Uh-huh. Yeah, no, you got to lay it all out in one video. Well, they took a different approach. Yeah. They created an eight-page pamphlet all about how bad Gutson Borkland was. Was it titled, So You're Working with Gutson Borgland? You're gonna regret it. This time they sent it to even more people. But once again, all it did was make them look childish and Gutson look kind of awesome, maybe.

Maybe kind of sexy? I don't think, well, we have no way of ruling that out. Yeah. Gutson was loving this. His toxic ex was looking desperate and he was the bell of the ball. He was in his sculptor ho. phase. He was like, oh, hey South Dakota, I could come sculpt your mountain, but there's so many other states that want me to sculpt their mountains. They're like seven of them. They're like

begging me to come sculpt their mountain. Who wants me to sculpt first? I'm about to bust. I guess I could drop by if you really want me. Tell me you want me. South Dakota like, you up? Yeah. Gutson, you up? Yeah. Donne Robinson and Senator Norbeck really wanted. Gutson. They seemed to understand fairly early on something that the Stone Mountain folks had to learn the hard way, which was that Gutson Borglum had an incredible gift. And if anyone was going to successfully carve a mountain, it'd probably be him. After all, he'd already done it, kind of. He'd started it anyway. Yeah. And the debacle at Stone Mountain hadn't happened because Gutson was bad at sculpting mountains, it had happened because maybe the Stone Mountain people were terrible

to work with. Yeah, micromanagers. Maybe Gutson was terrible to work with, maybe a little both. You should have read the Glass Door Review of the Stone Mountain Association. Norm, I think you're forgetting that we're in the 20s here. We don't have wonderful things like we do today, like Crystal Light, YouTube, and Glass Door. everyone's favorite website. All that to say that the proponents of the South Dakota project

didn't know exactly what they were getting into by agreeing to work with Guts and Borglum, but they had a general idea. And that was big, because it's one thing to figure out that someone is an egotistical, immature, dishonest asshole as you're working with them. But it's a totally different thing when you kind of know that going into the working relationship.

Yeah, sure. In this job, the people who Gutson would be working with had a sense of what they were up against. And they calculated that he was worth the risk. Are you ready for some ridiculous insight into the mindset of these dudes? Yeah. Okay. Donne Robinson once said, God only makes a Michelangelo or a Gutson Borglum once every thousand years.

years. He's no Michelangelo. No. You know how I know he's not? Everyone's heard of Michelangelo? Not everyone has heard of Gutson Borglum. I have a rude, funny story. Are you ready? Gutson Borglum, that's the worst ninja turtle. He ate all the pizza. Gutson, come on. Master Splinter wants us to take down shredder. He really did just need some Dejorno. Right. He was Horneau for de journeau. Okay, seriously, I've got to pause and tell you a ridiculous story. Okay. Gutsen Borglum. That name. Yeah. We can all agree. Not the prettiest name. Sure. He, we can also agree, had a massive ego. One time he's in this fancy pants bar. And this guy walks up to him and was like, hey, what's your name? He already knew the guy's name, but he just wanted to take Gutson down a peg. Oh, yeah.

So Gutz and says, Gutson Borglum. He goes, what? What's your name? Guy goes, Gutsen Borglum. Huh? What's your name? Gutson Borglum. Huh? Gutson Borglum.

And the guy goes, that's what I thought you said. Sounded like passing wind in a bathtub. Ooh. That's funny. Man, old-timey roasted. Maybe I just really like that joke because I've spent a lot of time. in bathtubs lately and I've farted into them multiple times. Yeah.

And it does sound exactly like guts and Borglum. Interesting. So they entered into this relationship and started talking about creating this magnificent national monument unlike anything that had ever been done before. Yeah, he's Michelangelo apparently. Uh-huh. Worth noting, there were still some detractors, haters, if you will. Oh, yeah.

Let's hear about these haters. Okay. Well, first off, environmentalists were like, hey, please don't go dynamiting away on God's creation. Yeah. That sucks. Yeah, that's a great point. A local journalist named Cora Babette Johnson just railed against this proposed monument. Cora was the editor-in-chief of the Hot Springs Star, and she wrote very persuasively about how a monument that is literally carved into a mountain.

mountainside would permanently desecrate the landscape that generations of people for hundreds of years had come to love. Yeah, and we talked about this in the last episode, I feel like, where it's like, yeah, most monuments they just take like a big stone and they just carve something out of it. But yeah, like building it literally into the mountain. Where it can never, well, it could be dynamited away. Yeah, but then you're like dynamiting the mountain away. Right.

Exactly. Yep. Cora worked so hard to stop this monument from happening. And her editorials were very powerful. But she was also a woman. A woman! There's no known cure for it, Norm. I'm sorry to say.

Oh, man. Donne Robinson tried to get Cora to stop writing mean things about the monument by... What do you do, Norm? How do you get a woman to stop writing mean things? things. I don't know. What did he do? Well, he went and talked to her husband, of course.

What? Yeah. What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, talk to the husband. Mm-hmm. And Coral was like, hey, bitch, I'm the one writing the articles. You can talk to me.

By the way, I'm so sorry that everyone is reading what I'm writing. I'm sure everyone's really looking forward to your encyclopedia. South Nekona. Man, they just, like, didn't think much of women, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm just thinking of, like, if you did something with your friend and you got in trouble and your mom came over to talk with the kids' parents. Mm-hmm.

It's like a scolding or something. Yeah. Yeah, that's stupid. It absolutely is. Mm-hmm. Are you wondering how Gutson felt about Cora? Oh, he probably loved Cora. No, he hated Cora.

He refused to call her by name. Instead, he referred to her as An Agent of Evil. Okay, that's a little dramatic, Gutson. Come on. She doesn't want me carving into a mountain because she thinks that mountains are cool as they are, and therefore she's an agent of evil.

Despite the protests from environmental the quest to create America's weirdest monument kept inching forward. Thanks to the state government's very mild support for the project, Gutson came out to South Dakota to drum up enthusiasm. And just like with the Stone Mountain Project, this was where he shined. Mm-hmm. Because if you have no problem telling people what they want to hear,

if you have no problem lying your ass off, then it's easy to get people on board. Yeah, just lie away. Just tell a bunch of lies. One of the, the trick is you just have to keep lying. Just lie after lie after lie. There has to be so many lies that there's like too many lies to like fact check. Is this something you know from experience, darling?

What's happening? Well, I was, I'm just thinking of like Donald Trump. That's like one of his tactics. Yeah. Is to just like say so. many lies. So confidently. So confidently. I think confidence is key. That like people just like aren't even bothered to fact check it anymore. Yeah, the other day we watched that clip of him saying you can't walk across the street to get a loaf of bread without being raped. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. He was

given some speech in Michigan. And apparently if you walk across the street to the grocery store, you could be raped. I think you will be raped. Or he will be. raped, yeah. And that's why we don't have bread in this house. No. Just not worth the risk. Nope. On that trip, Gutson knew that he needed to do the following things. Reassure the people of South Dakota that this monument would come together very quickly, very cheaply, and also that it would be done on a mountain that they didn't care about. And in the end, the monument would be the best thing ever. Cool. In conversations with local leaders, Gutson,

was always very nonchalant about the amount of money it would take to create the biggest sculpture known to man. Yeah. He threw out numbers. Yeah. Any number. He has no clue how much this is going to cost, but it's going to cost a lot. He doesn't care.

Yeah. He cares about getting the yes. Of course. He's not paying for it. No. Hell no. He's going to get paid. Absolutely.

Mm-hmm. He also threw out a, uh, totally original idea. I'm sure it won't sound familiar to anyone who's listened to this series. He said that they could fund this project by creating a commemorative federal dollar, which they could then sell as a fundraiser for $5 a piece. Not again. God damn it, dude. What's wrong? Go away. Don't you want this monument to be free? Nothing's free. But guts and skills as a confident, charming orator, really, shined when he gave an incredible speech to the people of South Dakota. He told them about his vision for a great American memorial carved into the Black Hills. It would feature George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. Had any of this been confirmed with Donne or the senator or any of the local guys trying to make this thing happen? No. No.

Don't have his own selection of presidents James Madison Millard Fillmore Franklin Pierce and William Henry Harrison If we don't put them on this rock Everyone will forget them That's right Also why Roosevelt

How did he get thrown in there With Alexa Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln You know that's a great question and when did Roosevelt probably recently passed away? Oh, you know, I don't know when he died, but he was a very recent president. It was a little fresh. I know that.

Let me see when he died. 1919. Mm. So. Yeah, he had recently passed away. Yeah. Why do you think Gutson wanted to include him? Hmm.

Well, I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was well liked. Sure. A lot of presidents were well, liked. Well, Teddy's kind of above most of the presidents. Gutson thought so too. Gutson had campaign for him and had considered him a personal friend. So, Bing, Bang, Boom, now he's on a rock.

Okay. Uh-huh. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I will say out of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore, Teddy Roosevelt does stand out. He does stand out. And it almost makes me wonder, would he looms? so large today if he hadn't been carved into Mount Rushmore?

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. It's hard to say. It's like, would we all know what the Mona Lisa looks like if it hadn't been stolen from the Louvre? Yeah. In the early 1900s. Hmm. Hmm.

Think about it, would you? Gutson told the crowd that when he finished the monument, the whole world would speak of South Dakota. Make South Dakota great again! And as for the location of this monument, don't worry about it. Getson assured his audience of mostly white people, I'm assuming, that he would not be carving up any of the significant landmarks that they'd come to love. Instead, he said that he planned to go find an unknown, massive stone, and carve that. An unknown massive stone?

Unknown massive stone. Yeah. You know, how you're always just forgetting about mountains. Oops, found this one between the couch cushions. Yep, no one owns this mountain. I think we'll use this one. Are you ready for the best part? Yeah.

The people of South Dakota would not be asked to contribute a dime. How the fuck is that? What do you mean how the fuck is that? That's just what's happening. They're not going to have to pay a dime. They're just going to have to sit back and wait for all the glory and the money that this thing would bring to their state. Are you excited? They have to build it first.

Sure. But not to the people of South Dakota, okay? We're pretty sure. And people believed him when he said this? You know what, Norm? When a confident man tells you things, there's especially things that you want to believe. There's always going to be, I submit, a very important. very large percent of the population who's like, all right, yeah, let's go, baby.

Yeah. You know, my therapist, Dr. Hubert Montgomery. That man's also a therapist? Yeah, he's the one that told me to get confidence and believe in myself. Uh-huh. So I get it. Did he give you that advice while he was wearing shorts with a blazer? He may have been.

Shorts are not a good look for a therapist. You know, they always cross their legs. They always do, don't they? But, man, Herbert's got a set of gams on him. If your therapist doesn't cross their legs, get a new therapist. Check their license. They're clearly, they're just a coach. Yeah.

Needless to say, the South Dakotans were pretty impressed. Suddenly, the monument sounded like a pretty good idea. Well, if it's free, sure. Yeah. But it's not going to be. Norman. Spoilers. My God.

How do these people think this is free? Because some do is like, you won't pay a dime for it. Mm-hmm. And he has no authority in government whatsoever. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, guts and speech, contrary to what you're saying, Norm, was a huge success, all right? Okay.

The only thing to do next was find that massive unknown rock he'd been talking about. Oh, right. There's plenty of those in South Dakota. Norm, you look like you're already. tired of Gutson's shit. I'm not even halfway through this story. I was tired of his shit last episode when he, when he ran up the jelly bean and started smashing stuff. That was a wonderful part of that episode. It was. It really was the climax. I think we all climaxed at that part. Anyway, Norm, I'm about to bust. I must ask you. Yeah. Are you prepared to hear the dramatic true

story of how Gutson discovered that massive unknown stone that we call Mount Rushmore. Yeah, let's hear about this unknown stone that no one has ever seen before or lived on before. Yeah, sure. Let's hear it. Okay, well, oh, man, here we go. Here's how it went, okay? Did it come to him in a dream? No, Norman.

My God, you think it's that easy to find a massive unknown stone? Use your head. he and his 13-year-old son Lincoln got on horseback and went deep into the black hills of South Dakota. They were in the wilderness. They didn't even have a path to ride on nor a pot to piss in. Just two dudes blazing their own trail looking for a mountain to carve. Mules carried their camping gear as they made their way on their treacherous, perilous, perilous journey. every day

for two weeks Gutson and Lincoln got up searched and camped searched and camped and searched and camped just looking for that perfect

unknown mountain but then oh my God oh wow they found it a massive unknown rock that no one had ever seen before how do they know that no one's

seen it before. Oh, Gutson gasped. It's perfect. He definitely shouted, this is the spot for the great American monument. Yep, because no one lived there before. It's an amazing story. For white people who came to South Dakota.

It's a really good story. Yeah. What was your favorite part? When they used mules to carry their camping gear. I thought that was cute. And I almost said, he-ha, into the microphone. but I didn't want to uninterrupt your little story.

Yeah, thank you, because you need to take this seriously, because that was a very true story. Now would you like to hear the actual story? Yeah. Of how Gutson picked Mount Rushmore. Yes. Okay, it's a little less exciting, all right, a little less perilous. After Gutson's little speech, where he told the people of South Dakota that they'd never have to pay a dime for the monument. Right.

Senator Norbeck drove Gutson and his son Lincoln to a very nice hotel called the Game Lodge. And they looked out the window and they were like, oh, look at that mountain. That's cool. Hey, Norm, you're being a bit of a jerk. It wasn't that easy. You can Google this hotel. Okay. It's the state game lodge at Custer State Park.

Custer. Ooh, the future topic. Custer was a fool, a damn fool. Ooh. This looks nice. Wait, looks nice. State Game Lodge? Looks nice.

Gutson and Lincoln were roughing it. Yes, this is a very nice looking place. They were not roughing it at all. Oh, look at the buffalo. Okay, don't look too much because I don't want you to see a spoiler. So that's where Gutson and Lincoln slept during this journey, not out in the woods. Did they have donkeys in their room there? The mules were in bed with them, and it was disgusting.

Yeah, so they slept in a very nice hotel, and the next day they met with a state forester who knew the area really well, and he told Gutson, hey, I think there are basically three mountains that might work really well for you. They're old baldy, sugar loaf, and Mount Rushmore, and the dude took Gutson and Lincoln to all three mountains, and Gutson was like, yeah, I think Mount Rushmore will. be the best fit. All in all, it took three days. And again, he slept in a very nice hotel the whole time. So this mountain was already called Mount Rushmore. I never put that together that it would have a name before the monument. Yeah, it had a name before Mount Rushmore, too. So, bang, boom. They had their mountain. Yay! We've done it. Except it wasn't there, mountain, and that was a big problem. And it remains a big problem to this day.

Because we all know that this project did get finished. We all know that it happened on Mount Rushmore. Right. But the fact is that those men had no right to carve Mount Rushmore. In fact, they shouldn't have even set foot on Mount Rushmore. And frankly, it kind of sucks. that I'm even referring to it as Mount Rushmore. And I'll tell you why in a minute,

but first we have to dust off our time machine. Oh, wait. Let me get it booted up. Whoa, we're going so far back. Whoa. What year are we in, Kristen? The year of 1868, darling. Okay, here's the deal.

Under the Treaty of 1868, a big area of land, which included the Black Hills, where Mount Rushmore is located, was supposed to belong to the Sioux people forever. That treaty literally said that the land would be forever preserved for the, quote, absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Sioux Nation. Further, it stated that the only way to change the boundaries of the reservation would be if a minimum of three-fourths of the adult men in the Sioux Nation approved of the boundaries, change. It was a big deal for Native American leaders to sign this treaty. They'd been through

hell, fighting for their land, and they were in a position of power because until that point, they defended their land from the U.S. government. Right. And the treaty was typical of any treaty in that, yes, they were getting something, but they were giving stuff up to. Right. they'd have to allow white travelers to pass through their land. They'd have to assimilate into white culture, as in they'd have to wear clothing approved by the U.S. government, which is ridiculous. They had a dress code in this treaty? A big part of all this grossness was forced assimilation. So, sorry, this is not in the script, but all of all of this.

over the place. There were these Native American boarding schools. And the whole point was to strip people of their culture, to try to take away their language, take away their style. I mean, like anything that identified them as a native person that tied them to their culture, to their families, to their people, had to go. Cultural genocide. It's disgusting. Yeah. So, yeah, the U.S. government provided clothes that they wanted them to wear. And they were the ugliest clothes in the world. Jinko jeans, crocs. What are we?

Big Dog tops. Oh, big dog? I run with the big dogs. No. I don't want to wear this. So this was a big deal. But the Sioux Nation figured that this was a deal worth striking. They'd get to keep their land forever.

They'd live in relative peace forever. but that didn't last because just a few years later in 1874 general george custer took himself this fucking guy took himself on a little expedition onto the black hills you know eyebrows first and he and his troops found gold i'm sorry have you seen his eyebrows i mean they don't stand out to me but they stand out to everybody else i saw a picture of him he was his eyebrows jutted out so far Can we assimilate him into some beauty norms? I don't. I'll have to find the photo that shocked me.

Yeah, it looked normal to me. Okay. What are you talking about? I'll find the picture. Okay. George Custer, talented young military officer during the Civil War, but yeah. What? What, Norm?

I'll let you talk about him a ton. I'm actually not going to talk about him a ton. My whole point in bringing him up is that when he went on this expedition, he found gold. And he and his troops told everybody. Newspapers spread the word, there was gold in them our hills. And soon every Chad, Jason, and Ryan was trespassing onto the Sioux land. The Ryans went to? The Ryans.

For what it's worth, the Sioux did fight back. but this was a gold rush. It was white dude whackamol. You couldn't keep up. White dude whackamol. That's the best way to describe it. These people were coming in from all over. Ridiculous.

You know, the genocide of California Indians was because of the gold rush too. White dude whackamol. It was white dude whackamol. It's a good way to put it. Thank you. I'm a historian. Yes. That's right.

We dub you the historian. What's the solution to this problem? Surround the Black Hills with things that are guaranteed to keep white dudes at bay. Things like spicy food, women's basketball, and soccer played by any gender. Wait, what? Oh, that's the joke. Okay. Wow, I thought that was good.

Women's basketball. Listen, you get a bunch of ladies playing basketball. basketball around the perimeter of the Black Hills, I guarantee you. Most of the white dudes will be like, I'm going to go over here instead. Well, they didn't do that. Instead, in 1877, Congress just decided to change up that treaty. They were like, we're going to steal a bunch of acres from you. Oh, and guess what?

The part with the gold in it? Yeah, we're definitely taking that part. That doesn't belong to you. Now please sign here. Let's all agree to this new deal. Only about 10% of the adult men in the Sioux Nation signed that new treaty. So it clearly wasn't valid, but they didn't have a lot of choice. For context, shortly before the gold rush, President Ulysses S. Grant talked at his inauguration about committing genocide against Native Americans. He said he'd prefer a assimilation, but the genocide would be fine too if that didn't work out. Do you really? Yeah. He was like, well, we can just kill him, I guess.

He said he preferred the benign methods of, what was it, religion and education, which is another code for like, we're wiping your culture out. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, if that doesn't work, extermination. Huh. Yeah. Did not know that. Yeah, and I'd love to know how the hell you're supposed to negotiate with people who are so

casual about murdering you and your family and everyone who kind of looks like you. Let me down, Grant. You let me down. You win the Civil War, and then you say something like that. Damn it. You hate to see it, folks. So the Sioux were robbed of that land, and that was especially painful because the Black Hills were sacred.

And that massive unknown rock that Gutson had stumbled upon and which a lot of us know as Mount Rushmore was always known to the Lakota Sioux as Tanka Sili Sakhpe Paha, the Six Grandfather's Mountain. It's a place of great spiritual significance. This guy, Donovan Sprague, is a history professor and a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, and he described it as, quote, the center of the universe of our people. It was where they prayed, where they fasted, where they got plants that they used for medicine. And not only was it stolen from them, but a few years later, in 1884, the six grandfather's mountain was renamed Mount Rushmore just because some douchebag attorney from New York City

named Charles Rushmore came out to South Dakota to buy a mine, and he arrived at this sacred space and was like, oh, that's really pretty. What's that mountain called? and some prospector dude who was with him was like, it's never had a name, but hereafter we'll call her Rushmore. And they did. Wow, what a story. And we still do.

It's like when people sell you stars, give you a certificate. It is. It is. Yeah, that's such horseshit. It is horseshit. Yeah. I hate it. Yeah, that's disappointing.

It's disgusting. And it's disgusting that in my head, I can't un Mount Rushmore it, but I've got to. That's ridiculous. That's such a stupid story. It is. What's that called? It's never had a name.

Oh, yeah. No one's ever laid eyes on it before, my dear. Yeah. And there's dudes probably literally standing on it. Oh, yeah. Of course. Give me a break. Yeah.

You think this planet's new? It's brand new, fresh out of the package. Mm-hmm. Anyway, years passed, then decades. And by 1920, just a few years before these white dudes came in talking about carving up sacred land, the Sioux Nation began what would become a very long fight in the U.S. court system to get back the land that had been stolen from them. In their lawsuit, the Sioux argued that the federal government had taken their land without just compensation, and that was a violation of their Fifth Amendment rights.

So, all this to say, that as the plans for Mount Rushmore National Monument began to take shape, there was an active court case concerning land and specifically a mountain that was of the utmost importance to Native Americans. And to add insult to injury, the plan wasn't just to dynamite and hack into that sacred Mountain, the plan was to carve into it the faces of their oppressors. We talked in last week's episode about the why of the Stone Mountain Confederate Monument. Yeah. We talked about weaponized art and about how when a monument takes center stage, when you

have to pass it in your everyday life, it sends a powerful and chilling message about who's in control. And about how when that art is huge. When it's larger than life, it's shocking, it's emotional. And when you look at it, you can't help but feel something. And in this case, for this episode, maybe for some folks, that something is patriotism. And for others, that something is a violation. Because think about the men who Gutsenborgland proposed carving into the Six Grandfather's Mountain.

George Washington. The Iroquois nicknamed him the town destroyer, because in 1779, George Washington ordered the destruction of 50 Native American settlements in upstate New York. Thomas Jefferson, who expanded the United States with the Louisiana purchase. Hell of a deal. Teddy Roosevelt, who famously said, quote, I don't go as far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians. Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the 10th.

Then Abraham Lincoln. No, I can't bear to hear it, Kristen. I know. No. Let me tell you something, Norm. Originally, I, no shit, had it in the script that's like, well, you know, Abraham Lincoln, he's famously not problematic. But, you know, he also thought his face was ugly, so he probably wouldn't even want it carved into a mountain he-he-he-he. and then I, you know, got to Googling.

They gave him a goog. Yeah, so here's his. In 1862, the U.S. broke its promise to the Dakota people. The promise was that in exchange for tribal land, the U.S. would give the Dakota people food and supplies. But it didn't. And the Dakota people began to starve. But they didn't just lie down and take it.

They fought back. and as a penalty they were captured and put on trial, although some of those trials lasted literally five minutes, and Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer by profession, reviewed those trial transcripts, decided they were good enough, and approved the execution of 38 Dakota men. To this day, it's the largest mass execution in United States history. Oh. And it was over and done so quickly and so sloppily that the executioners didn't realize until after all the men were dead that they'd hung two innocent men by accident. Thank you for telling me this, Kristen.

I appreciate it. Sorry. It's a fun episode, isn't it? Yeah, this is a real riot. Uh-huh. Yeah. Ooh, yeah. Here, let me get some sounds going to lighten the mood a little bit.

Oh, God. That's a good one. Yeah, that's great. So to Native American people, the idea of carving these men on stolen land into a sacred mountain. Insulting. I mean, to me. Disrespectful. Just carve four giant middle fingers instead.

Because that's what this is, right? Basically, yeah. You look heartbroken because I said bad things about Abraham Lincoln. I mean, not just Lincoln. Yeah. Admittedly, I don't know much about the atrocities committed against Native Americans. I know there were atrocities, but you're giving me the details. And I don't like it.

Yeah, so this was horrible. But that's not how Gutson Borglum or his powerful supporters saw it. So don't worry about it. They were doing something great. They were going to honor democracy with the greatest sculpture ever. Well, they don't give two shits about Native Americans. True, true, true, true. So they're just like, oh, oh, they said what?

Oh, we don't care. Yeah. Yeah. And so even though there was an active court case concerning this land, Gutson and his pals kept on trucking. And in their view, they were the underdogs. They had to get funding for this wonderful idea that the haters couldn't seem to understand. And you know what, Norm, that should have been a lot tougher than it ended up being.

Because here's the thing. I've talked about environmentalists. Yeah. I've talked about Native Americans. Yeah. But I have not yet talked about the other group of local people. People like my own father who think that the worst thing you can do is waste money. And to them, this thing seemed like a gigantic waste of money.

There you go. it's economically stupid it's uh very expensive yes yeah and that's what makes this story such a weird mix of unlikely and wild and sad and also exciting i guess because under ordinary circumstances mount rushmore national monument would have never happened it shouldn't have happened there was opposition. And the failure at Stone Mountain is proof that even when there isn't much opposition, a project that is this unnecessary and this expensive can still fail for a number of reasons. But there were a couple of odd factors that gave this project the push that it needed. The first was that Americans, by and large, were in a goofy mood.

It's the Roar in 20s! Yes! Oh, wait a minute. Oh, yeah, put it on. People had access to things that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. Ordinary people were buying cars. They were shitting in indoor toilets. White women were voting.

We were watching movies with the sound in them. World War I had wrapped up and we totally kicked its ass. We'd solved that problem so good that we'd never go to war again. That's how good we were at war. da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da oh i'm feeling like carving a mountain just thinking about that yep so even though the people of south dakota were very practical on a national level there was a lot of ego and a feeling that we could do anything this was the time to think big you want to carve faces into mountains you go for it baby yeah hell yeah

We're going to do it. We have no skills. Yeah. Our budget is zero dollars. Yep. But a big reason, maybe the biggest reason, that the work on Mount Rushmore actually got started, was thanks to a pretty bizarre story about the people of South Dakota, charming the pants off of President Calvin Coolidge.

Oh, your favorite president, Kristen. He's not my favorite president. I just mentioned him last week because I had him on the brain because, you know, I've been reading about this fellow a lot. Yeah. Do you know much about him? Calvin Coolidge? No, I don't. Okay. Here we go. First off, Calvin Coolidge was a pretty normal guy, pretty down to earth, famously introverted.

Very cool. I don't know that people called him cool. He's Coolidge. Oh, Jesus. Calvin, you're so cool. Let's be sure to leave that in. Let's not leave that on the editing room floor. Okay.

Being introverted is a little bit of a strange trait for a president, but in his defense, he only became president because he was the vice president when Warren G. Harding kicked the bucket. So there you go. In fact, Calvin Coolidge was so quiet that his nickname was Silent Cal. There's a famous story that a woman who was sitting next to him at a dinner party said, I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of it. you. And Calvin just looked at her and said, you lose. Oh. And didn't say anything else after that,

huh? Pretty good story, right? That didn't happen, right? Yeah, I mean, maybe not, but it captures the vibe. It's more about the point. This is a parable, sir. Okay. Do you get it? Yep. Okay. Now, gosh, this episode's full of downers, but I want to add another thing that I think is worth mentioning because there's quite a bit of evidence that in the later part of his presidency, he was suffering from very severe depression. And that's because just a couple years earlier in the summer of 1925, his two sons had been playing tennis on the White House tennis courts. Do you know this story? No. Okay. This is so ridiculously sad. His son Calvin Jr., who like had just turned 16, so he's a kid, he'd been playing tennis with shoes but not socks.

And he got a blister from playing tennis that way. Okay. The blister turned septic and he died of sepsis. From a blister? Yes. Man. Because he didn't wear socks. Is that not just so ridiculous?

I guess penicillin was like not out yet. Maybe not. I don't know. I know penicillin came out in the 20s because I was going to make a joke about how people were down in penicillin during the roaring 20s. 1928 is when it was invented. Oh, yeah. And he died in 25. So this is one of those weird things where like back in olden times, everyone was like, wow, Calvin Coolidge sure is quiet. But like in more modern times, biographers look back and they're like, well. He was very, very depressed. Yeah.

Okay, so you get the idea. Very quiet man. The other thing you have to know is that Calvin Coolidge had chronic bronchitis, and that was just pure hell in the summertime in Washington, D.C. So every summer, he and his wife, Grace, would leave Washington, D.C. And set up like a mini White House somewhere that didn't suck. Get some fresh air. Yes. Yeah, because D.C. smelled terrible.

It was muggy. Yeah. The thing they hated about doing this was that, you know, know, setting up like a summer White House got all these like state officials all horny to have the president come to their state because, you know, their state's the best state and oh, the publicity and oh, maybe I'll be rubbing elbows with him. I'll get him to say more than two words to me. Did he go to South Dakota? Why don't you hold your horses, sir? But obviously he did. Yeah. Okay, so every year it's like this little fight to see where the president's going to stay.

Come on, Branson. Branson, Missouri. Come on. South Dakota wanted Calvin Coolidge to come to the Black Hills. So bad! So bad. They wanted the tourism dollars! Yeah.

So in January of 1927, they wasted no time. They passed a resolution formally inviting Calvin Coolidge to spend the summer with them. They were hoping that this would go over better than the previous year's invitation, which he had declined. Oh. They got to sweeten the pot a little bit. bit. What do they got to do? Breakfast in bed. Okay. Maybe.

I feel like you're going to have to step it up a few more notches for the fucking president. Back rubs. Ew. Okay. Well. Backrubs? Daily? Oh my gosh. Okay. It's getting a little better, I must say. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. How about all you can eat ice cream? Oh.

Ooh. Calvin, we've got a little ice cream bar for you. Might not be good for bronchitis, though. I feel like dairy will get like clog your throat up. Okay. You're trying to kill the president. Nice. Good job, Norm. Wow.

Nope. Rumor has it. They found him with a mouthful of rocky road. Norm rubbing him down. It was quite a sight. Me rubbing him down. Yeah. I assume you're doing everything, right?

You're bringing him the breakfast in bed. Yeah, I'm like his personal assistant. Sure. Great. So Calvin never responded to this formal invitation, but, you know, he thought about it. And finally he asked somebody, okay, well, do they have a lot of mosquitoes there? Do they have a lot of flies? And the person was like, no, you know, up in the mountains, not really.

And yeah, that's how he decided where to go. Great choice. Honestly, this made me think a lot of you. Really? Norman. Yes. A relatively quiet man. Me.

Who doesn't want a bunch of people annoying him. Yep. Who hates mosquitoes and who hates flies. Yep. Bing, bang, boom. You're Calvin Coolidge. I'm just like a mosquito magnet. Mosquitoes just want to bite me nonstop.

They do. They do. They just go crazy on me. It's because you're so sweet. They are horno for normal. You know? Yeah. And I'm like,

Citos, please. I could just say horny for Normie as well. There's a lot of options. Yeah. Yeah, we've got to workshop this for sure. Could be future merch. A T-shirt. Horny for Normie.

Norman, people, you already debuted the history ho shirt on Patreon. People were very sweet about it. You just did a little design mock up. Yeah. And we had a lot of people, normal people, I would say, who were like, this is so great. I will not wear that in public. Yeah. And so your alternative for them will be horny for Normie.

How about horny for Normie? Please, I beg of you. Please, next time I be like, hey, I listen to your feedback about not wearing a history. You're right. Ho is very inappropriate in public. Horny for Normie? Yeah. That just means you're attracted to somebody.

Yeah. Wear that to the family reunion. You're fine. Yep. Work. I know you work at a daycare, but it's fine. Stop. So Calvin Coolidge agrees.

He's going to South Dakota for the summer. But he's like, I'm only going for three weeks, and it's not a publicity tour. I'm not making any speeches. I'm not making any official public appearances. This is just me doing my job in a different location. Okay? Everybody, calm down. Yeah.

And so on June 13, 1927, Calvin and Grace Coolidge showed up in South Dakota with their dogs, Rob Roy and Prudence Prim and their pet raccoon, Rebecca. Is that real? That is real. A pet raccoon? A pet raccoon named Rebecca who Grace kept in a little wicker basket. That thing was shitting everywhere. I imagine so, but raccoons are really cute.

Are they mean? Yeah, they're mean. Oh, wow. I wonder if it wore a diaper. It's kind of badass that she had that thing. A raccoon in a diaper would be funny. because they have those cute bushy tails. Uh-huh.

And be poking out the back of the diaper. But if you have a hole in the diaper, isn't poop falling out of the diaper? These are the questions we have. I mean, how far had diaper technology come? Probably not far enough for a raccoon, I'd say. Eugene Pamper had not developed his incredible invention yet. I just made that up. We all know you just made it absurd.

No, you don't. So they made the Game Lodge their little summer White House. That's why I didn't want you to Google too much. Because, you know, obviously the Game Lodge is quite proud of that fact. Yeah, it does. It looks like that place was built in the 1910s. Yeah, it has that look. It's got that look.

She's got the look. She's got the look. 1927, Cavalinkulich was here. Oops, a raccoon pooped in my hair. Okay, that's enough. That's enough. Even I got tired of that one. Wow!

I've got an agent of evil in my own home. So Gutson Borglum and the Mount Rushmore boys were thrilled. Their goal was to lure Calvin Coolidge out of that summer White House and get his stamp of approval on their national monument and maybe even get some federal funding. That was imperative because by that point Gutson was starting to get caught in some of his fibs. He'd famously said that the people of South Dakota wouldn't be asked to contribute a dime.

Yeah, yeah. But at the official Mount Rushmore National Monument dedication ceremony, he went around and was kind of like, hey, you know, first of all, obviously this monument's going to make you filthy rich. You're going to love it. It's going to put you on the map. I do need one little thing. It's not major.

I just need all the people of the Black Hills to chip it. been like 50K to get this thing started. 50,000? Yeah. Adjusted for inflation, $900,000. From people who like not that long ago, you'd been like, oh, don't worry about money. You'll never pay a dime. These are blue-collar worker people?

Not necessarily. I mean. $900,000. Not necessarily like blue-collar worker folk, but like still, these are people who you lied to. And now you're being super casual about needing 50K from them. Kristen. Yeah. Imagine the Kansas City Royals want to build their new baseball stadium.

Uh-huh. And they ask the citizens of Kansas City, if everyone could just pitch in $900,000, we could have a really cool stadium. Well, it is pretty much taxpayer-funded, so don't get me started. Yeah, we shot that shit down. We sure did. We like Kaufman Stadium by the old Taco Bell out on I-70. And also near the headquarters of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Yeah, what more could we want?

Something in the city that's more accessible? Hell no. Anyhow. That 50K thing pissed a lot of people off, including the guys who had been backing him this whole time. Well, yeah, he lied. Yeah. And now they were getting a little suspicious about some of the other money promises

that he'd made to them. They should have listened to those damn Confederates. Maybe they should have. You can't be wrong 100% of the time. He'd made promises like, oh, we don't need to worry about money. John D. Rockefeller just pledged a huge donation. Also, Mr. Webster.

He also wants to donate. Also, two anonymous donors, don't ask me who, they're anonymous, but they're good for 200k apiece, okay? Yep. I got him lined up. Yeah, I got the Kool-Aid man in for 400K. Fuck it, he can just make up whatever.

And George Glass and George Costanza as well. Dr. Hubert Montgomery pitched in a billion. He sure did. And wow, that was so generous. He was going to go buy a pair of pants. Instead, he was like, I'm going to donate instead, and I'm just going to wear my shorts with my blazer. That's what I'm going to do. That's a lot of money.

When in doubt, Gutson said that he'd lined up several eastern. money kings. I love that. Eastern money kings. What the fuck does that mean? Wealthy dudes on the East Coast. Yeah, yeah, we all get it. I know what he's talking about.

This is like cuddles for cash cutties. I know exactly what you mean when you say that. Like there's a better way to say it, but I know what you mean when you do say it. Exactly. So this visit from Calvin Coolidge could not have come at a better time because local proponents of the monument had kind of come to accept that they could trust Gutson's work, but they couldn't trust his word. Nope. And if they needed to get the money to get this thing going, they'd need to, I don't know,

manipulate the president of the United States. Listen, yeah, while you're giving him that back rub, say so, and you're digging your elbow in. What do you think about a national monument? And he's just really quiet, so he doesn't say anything. Yeah. Okay, Norm. You ready for their plan?

Step one. Back rub. No, what are they actually going to do? Step one. Lure him out of the game lodge for an official public event. I'm sorry. When he said lure him out of the game lodge, I'm just imagining putting a Snickers bar on a fishing pole and railing them in.

Who's going to resist that? Gallen Coolidge loves Snickers bars. The plan. To name one of the. Black Hills Mount Coolidge. Oh, dear God. Yeah. Norm, if you hate this first one, you're going to lose your shit.

I already hate it. All right. They figured if they named one of the mountains Mount Coolidge, then he'd have to come out and make a public speech. They were wrong. He was just like, okay, cool. And he just kept working. Yeah. Man, you know, I'm kind of liking this Calvin Coolidge guy.

I'm kind of digging his vibe. I know. It's one of those things. I'm like, okay, if I did a deeper dive, I'd probably come to hate him. But I skimmed the surface, and I really like him. So they had to try another tactic. Something flashier. Norm, do you have an idea for something flashier than naming a mountain after him and hoping he'll come out and give a speech? Song and dance? You're not thinking big enough. I'll tell you what they did. One day, Calvin Coolidge was having a super important meeting with the Governor General of the Philippines. Very

important meeting, did not want to be interrupted. Okay, are we picturing this? Yep. Gutson Borglum hired a pilot to fly over the game launch, and as they flew by, Gutson tossed down a massive wreath of flowers. Attached to that wreath were two moccasins. One moccasin read Mount Rushmore, the other read Mount Coolidge, and attached to that was a card that read Greetings from Mount Rushmore. Rushmore to Mount Coolidge. Dear God. This is the most annoying thing I've ever heard. Cal and Coolidge would be like, I am leaving.

Yeah. That's what I would say. Are you serious flying low over my game lodge? You'll be shocked to know that that also didn't work. One thing that definitely worked, though, was their unbelievable effort to convince Calvin Coolidge that he was really good at fishing. Oh, flatter him. Yeah, how do you convince someone they're really good at fishing, Norm? I want to see if you can guess this.

Oh, they dump a bunch of fish into some water area. They're like, Mr. President, I'll tell you to this great fishing spot. And, you know, people don't usually catch fish here, but if they do, they're really cool and sexy. They have giant dongs. So let's check it out. Norm, you could have been a South Dakota state representative back in the day. Yeah. Okay.

So the whole goal was to bring money to South Dakota. Money for the monument, money for tourism. And they figured that if they could get photos of Calvin Coolidge fishing for trout, they'd attract a ton of tourists who wanted to come to South Dakota to go trout fishing. Visit South Dakota. Okay, so there's just one problem. Calvin Coolidge wasn't a trout fishing. So they'd have to make them into one.

That's right. Here's what they did. As soon as they found out that Calvin Coolidge was coming to South Dakota, the governor and some other high-up dudes reached out to the state fish hatchery. And the hatchery had a ton of breeding trout. Yeah. These trout were very old. They'd only ever lived in captivity. They were slow.

They weren't afraid of anything because they'd never had to be afraid of anything. Yeah, so they have like no instincts to like swim away from a fishing hook. Right. They're just massive fish. Yeah. Oh, and then he's going to think, whoa, look at this big old fish I caught. Yes. So these men put up some wire fish fences or whatever in the creek near the game lodge and filled those fences with like 2,000 old worn out fish.

And then when Calvin Coolidge arrived, they were like, excuse me, everyone, no one but the president can fish here. It's because he needs his privacy. It's not because we filled this area up with big, dumb fish. And so, you know, with a little encouragement, Calvin Coolidge was like, well, I guess I'll try trout fishing. That's fine. And he immediately caught a huge one and another huge one and another huge one. It was so fun. Every time he fished.

He caught a ton of him. And he was like, You're so talented, President, Mr. President. I kind of hate this. Because he seems like a nice, normal guy, and he really did enjoy it. He was having so much fun. He had no idea that they'd done this to him. Yeah.

But, yeah, bottom line was, he was like, wow, turns out I love trout fishing, and South Dakota is amazing. Wow. I'm so talented. In the end, Calvin and Grace really fell in love. with South Dakota. They turned their three-week stay into a three-month stay. Oh, those backgrobes must have worked. They sure did. They loved the weather. Obviously, they loved the fishing, but they also really loved the people, and the people seem to love them, you know, small government Republicans. Woo-hoo! The Sioux named him an honorary Sue. Really? Wow. Well, because, you know, everybody's

trying to flatter this guy. Even the Native Americans. Sure. Yeah. And that's why, in mid-July, Calvin said, you know what? I will dedicate Mount Rushmore. Worth noting, this was technically the second dedication ceremony, but who's counting? On August 10th, 1927, Silent Cal did what he said he wouldn't do. He made a public appearance, and he gave a speech. In that speech, he praised the plan for the Mount Rushmore Monument. He offered his support of it, and he did one better. He pledged the financial support of the federal government. Oh, God damn it. No.

Gutson was there, of course, and he was pumped. This was the best he could have ever hoped for. I guess that wreath was worth it. Flying that stupid little plane and throwing the wreath. I really doubt that the wreath helped. Maybe it did. Well, you know, in Gutson's mind, he thought it did. He did it.

It's all because of that wreath. Yep. Gutson was so happy that when it, it came time for his speech, he went a little overboard. He said that he hoped to add Calvin Coolidge's face to Mount Rushmore. No, shut up. No, stop it. And then.

Stop. Norm, I can't stop. There's a lot more to say. I love that your reaction to half the shit that comes out of Gutson's mouth is just, no, stop. Shut up. I hate you. This man is ridiculous.

Oh, he is. he is an egomaniac, he's ridiculous. Yeah. Are you ready for it to get a little more ridiculous? Yeah. Oh, boy. Sure. He publicly invited Calvin Coolidge to write a 500-word history of the United States

that would be carved alongside the monument, 120 feet tall, 80 feet wide. Oh, my God. She's giving him homework now. Yeah. The president of the United States has homework. Just 500. It's going to be on there forever. It's going to be on there forever.

What an honor. What if it's like a terrible history? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. What, Norm? What if it's like terribly written? Hmm. That's a really funny thing that you would think to say.

Anyhow, let's continue. Okay. Calvin Coolidge was honor. A foreshadowing, I guess. Uh-huh. Later, after he left South Dakota, he made good on his promise. when he was down to the final six days of his presidency, Calvin Coolidge, signed the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Act. Wait a minute. Congress had to vote on this, and they approved it to?

Yeah. Jesus Christ. Okay. That meant that the federal government would give $250,000 in matching funds for every private dollar raised. By that point, the Mount Rushmore proponents hadn't raised nearly that amount, but it was enough to get started. So wait, if the state raises $250,000, the federal government will match it. Private dollars. So it could be private donations from John D. Rockefeller, the Kool-Aid man, Mr. Webster. Federal government will match.

As long as it's $250,000. Up to $250,000. Okay. So for every private dollar, got it now. Do you understand what a match is, Norm? Yeah, my brain is like, it, do it, do, do it. It's like calculating. You're still thinking about massaging Calvin Coolidge while he writes a really bad 500-word essay.

I'm still uncomfortable about all the horrible things we've done to Native Americans. But you know what? I should be uncomfortable about it. It's fucked up. Yeah, it's bad. I guess I just wasn't expecting that when you were telling me this and I was just like, I don't know what to say. You weren't expecting it? Well, look.

Okay. Yeah, go ahead. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know. You were just piling on. I was getting buried and just... Sad information. Horrible shit. You know what?

I will say. When I started this series, you know, I'd done the documentaries. You know, they kind of give you the overview. And when you do like the overview, it's like, wow, that's bad. That's bad. Yeah. But when you do the deep dive and you think about what it means to carve those specific faces onto that land on that mountain.

It just makes it so much worse. It's so much worse. So much worse. I get that. Yeah. Let's all feel sad for a minute. I'm to the point like to honestly today. Because when we started this series, I was like, yeah, we're going to be passing through next

year, next summer. And obviously I'm going to go see Mount Rushmore. Now I don't know how I feel about that. I'm kind of like, what? Well, I have to stop and look after all this. And maybe I will, but it's not going to be with a whole lot of joy, I guess. I want to go see it. Yeah, I mean, even knowing, like, even knowing all that.

It's still, I think that's why this story is so complicated is like, yeah, it just is. Yeah, it's fucked up. And yet, we want to go to there. Well, I'm not going to South Dakota just to look at Mount Rushmore. Well, no, no, no, of course not. Of course not. It's the trout fishing that drew you in. Yeah.

I hear there's some big game. We hear there's big, dumb trout that will bite anything. Hell yeah. So they had this federal matching dollar thing, which you now understand. And they were ready to get started. And wow, this thing really needed to get started. because Gutson kept expanding the scope of the project. Oh, boy.

First off, they were already planning to sculpt four presidents down to the waistline. Did you know that? I think you mentioned that in the first episode. Maybe. Can't remember. Down to the top of their pantomel. Yeah, I have heard that. And now he'd added on that 500-word history thing.

He was calling it an entablature and saying that it needed to be there because this monument would be around for hundreds of thousands of years. and if it was just faces, it might end up like the faces at Easter Island. Cool as hell, but a total mystery. Fun fact. Gutson would later decide that the entablature was not quite enough. Instead, he'd advocate for the monument to have additional text written in English, Latin, and quote, some Asian language, unquote, so that it could be...

Some Asian language? Yeah, TBD. There's a lot of different languages throughout Asia. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But yeah, let's just pick one. We'll pick one. He was thinking that if they did that, this could be like Rosetta Stoned, you know? Oh, wow.

Incredible. Yeah, so like a million years from now. When the aliens or... Yeah, the aliens will be like, wow, what's this? And then they'll be like, wait, I speak that some Asian language. I know this Asian language. But those were future problems for another time. Just throwing that out there.

Yeah. And a future species of alien people. Yeah. Yeah, their number one concern will be, why is this face on this? Well, I mean, honestly, that would be pretty intriguing. Damn it, Gutson, you got me. So he just wanted to keep a little record of like, hey, yeah, this is why we put the faces here. For him, this was his way of being immortal. And I think for a lot of these guys who were proponents of this, it was like, this is how I become immortal.

I do this thing that cannot be erased. And their face isn't on Mount Rushmore. No, but... Like you say, most people don't know who Gutson Borglam is. I venture to say that a lot of people do, though. I think that they were thinking, sure, the first question is, who are these people that are carved into the mountain? But when you look at something that big and something that weird,

the other logical question is, who did this and why? And then they are the story. And the aliens say, I'm pretty sure here's what they did. They took parachutes and they jumped off this mountain. And they slowly chiseled away. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only logical way to do it, they said.

For now, they had to get started carving into sacred land. They'd start with George Washington's face. What? Should start on that damn forehead. Are you roasting George Washington's forehead? Yeah, more like a five head. Wow. In his defense, the wigs kept ripping up his real hair,

so it just made his forehead look like it was further and further back. Yeah, his hair line started behind his head. It was way back there. So a lot of the tactics and tools that Gutson used in Stone Mountain kind of applied to Mount Rushmore, except for the idea of using a gigantic projector to project onto the mountain. Oh, I actually thought that was a good idea. It was a great idea, but it only worked on Stone Mountain because Stone Mountain's basically a giant jelly bean. A flat jelly bean, yeah.

And the Six Grandfather's Mountain is like bumpy and lumpy, and so it just doesn't work that way. So he had to do a bunch of boring stuff with protractors and math, and, you know, anyway. Who cares? You get the idea. And he also had to hide. And some math nerds going to be listening to this episode, fuming. Just glossed over how they did it. Listen, if they're that interested, they can look it up themselves. Wow.

When I see math stuff, my brain just goes, math, math, math, math, math, math, math, math, everybody. And then I dance and sing, and that's the end of it. And I don't understand what happened. Yeah, when you say match up to $250,000, I have no idea what you're talking about. You got there eventually. So then they had to hire some workers. But getting people who were willing and able to do that kind of work was a little tough.

Just like at Stone Mountain. Yeah, but I don't know why I think that this one's scarier than Stone Mountain. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't want either of these jobs, just so we're clear. But jobs in this area of South Dakota were pretty hard to come by. And the work on Mount Rushmore paid a lot better than most other jobs in the area. But it was tough, dangerous work. For one thing, just to get to the job site, the guys that had to climb onto the top of a mountain every day.

And that's before you've even done anything. Yeah, I'm like, shit. Yeah, I climb a mountain to go to work. That's a hell of a commute. And then to do their jobs, Norm, I don't mean to upset you, but they had to get in a swing. No. Which was held by a cable Oh, God.

And tangle high in the air While balancing the super heavy equipment. So, these, picture, you're in a swing hanging off the side of a mountain. You've got a jackhammer that weighs like 50 pounds. And there's this like hose thing attached to it, so that's annoying. And then you've got a hammer that's attached to your swing. Some dudes got up there, worked one day, and they were like, never mind. That was terrible.

Goodbye. That'd be me. I would climb I would climb to the top of the mountain and then they'd say okay get in your swing and I'd say I quit and you just crap your pants

I'd walk back down the mountain and I go trout fishing and have a de journo pizza the dudes who did stick it out had wild stories one guy talked about being on the ledge by George Washington's chin and he was just like so exhausted

so exhausted and then nothing. And when he came to, he realized that he had passed out on the ledge, and by sheer luck, he'd fallen forward into the mountain and not backward off the mountain. Dear God. Yeah, so he freaks out, he scrambles off the ledge,

goes to a doctor, turns out he had chicken pox. Oh. He had a really good sense of humor about it. In an interview, he was like, you know, the good thing is, I survived the chicken pox. I wouldn't have survived that fall. Ha, ha, ha. Hey, oh.

Very great. There were a lot of close calls, a lot of injuries, and a lot of sacrifices. Did anyone die? No one died. Can you believe that? Yeah, I can't believe that. No one died, this entire project. Man.

Future topic, the Brooklyn Bridge. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. The weather in South Dakota meant that every winter work on the monument had to shut down. So these guys were left for like four months out of the year without a job. And they just had to hope they could find something else. But a lot of them kept coming back year after year, you know, possibly because other employment was hard to find, but also because they felt like they were working on something much bigger than themselves and on something that mattered.

Sure. I can understand that feeling. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, a lot of them were former miners. And so to go from mining coal endlessly to like, hey, we want you to work on this monument to America's greatest presidents. It's a national monument. You're being told like this will be around for hundreds of thousands of years. Yeah, that's cool. It is. To some people. To some people, yes. And that's what's so complicated and awful about this story is like you think. Things can be true. Yeah. You kind of love these workers and it's kind of cool to think of them making this sacrifice

and doing this year after year. And then the flip side of that is, yeah, they're carving into sacred land. So they're doing something that they feel really matters and there's some pride in that. And then there's also this weird element of like they're doing this really. unique thing, this really dangerous thing, and it bonded these guys together. Are you ready for some of the hilarious pranks that men pull when they're really bonded together on a dangerous job? Oh, God.

And they're high up in the air. Okay, let's hear it. Okay. This is terrible. All right. One of their favorite pranks was to get a new guy in his swing. You know, you lower him down. You let him get comfortable.

He'll get him working for a while. And then, without his knowledge, you just crank his swing up a tiny bit, maybe not even an inch. The trick was to do it slowly over a long period of time so that he didn't know that he was rising up in the air. And then when he least expected it, you release the cable and he boom, plummet's like 18 inches. That's not funny. Oh, it's a hilarious story because the prank is that the new guy thinks he's about to die. Yeah, I was going to say. I would just immediately soil myself.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure most people did. That's a ridiculous thing to do to someone. Are you ready to hear another one? Sure. Full disclosure. This one is so unlikely that in his book, the carving of Mount Rushmore,

Rex Allen Smith starts off by saying essentially, hey, I know this story sounds like it can't possibly be true. there's a chance it isn't, but I'm including it in here because multiple people claim that this actually happened. Okay. You ready? Okay. After a hard day's work, these dudes would be very dusty. They'd been jackhammering, chisling, rock all day.

They're covered in dust. And at the end of every workday, they use this really powerful blower to get the dust off of themselves. Okay. Think like a vacuum in reverse, okay? A blower is what it's called actually. Norman. It is. You're right.

I know. A leaf blower is. A vacuum in reverse. It's incredible. This is like my idea for an individual cookie cake. Yeah. You mean cookies? I invented it.

Oh my gosh. I'm just like the guy who's like, oh, that mountain doesn't have a name. It's Mount Kristen now. You are. I invented the individual cookie cake, which is just a cookie. You're taken after your ancestors, Kristen. Okay, story goes. A man named Howdy Peterson was using that blower thing, which I invented, so I don't know how he's heard of it.

And this other worker, we're going to call him George. It's not his real name. Anyway, George walks by, kicks him. Playful little kick, just for fun. Yeah, we used to kick each other on the soccer team. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I think that was just part of the sport or no?

No, we were just fucking around with each other. That's what was happening here, just fucking around. Okay, so as revenge for the little kick, Howdy decided to mess with George by blasting him on the butt with the blower, you know? Well, million to one shot. What? What? Howdy accidentally blasted George not on his butt, but into his butt hole.

No And George And George Filled up with air Like a balloon No he didn't His stomach jutted out Play the I'm about to bust

I'm about to bust George screamed My God, howdy you've killed me This didn't happen Howdy freaked out He yanked the blower off of George's Butthole Oh my God

He hadn't meant to kill him Stop. Soon. George began farting like you wouldn't believe. He had so much gas in his body. It needed to escape. Kristen. Farted and farted and farted and farted up blood.

Why did you include this clearly false story? It is funny. But he would literally have to... So first of all, was this a blower or like an air compressor? What was this thing? I mean, I told you it's a vacuum number first. Well, I'm sorry, but if he actually did that, he would literally have to shove it into his butthole. Uh-huh.

And he was wearing pants? I assume. So how could that even happen? Did he, like, go through the pants? Did he forcibly shove this blower into his butthole? I mean, maybe. They were working with pretty powerful. tools, Norm.

Uh-huh. Anyway, so he starts farting up blood. This is a true story, and I don't like your tone, Norm. Farting blood. Yeah, farting blood. It was a very serious situation. Howdy, you done killed me. No panic.

George went to his doctor. He was sure that Howdy had done irreparable harm to his inside region, and that was especially troubling because a year earlier, George had undergone surgery to address his abdominal cancer. the surgery had gone well, but he'd been left with some adhesions. And so the fear was maybe Howdy had angered the adhesions by filling him up with air. Well, the doctor took a look, and he was like, actually, everything looks fine. In fact, your adhesions look a lot better.

And in the end, it was a good thing that Howdy blasted him in the butthole. And that is a maybe true story about the men who worked on Mountbathees. Freshmore. How many people backed up this story? I think at least two. You know what? Here's a thing, Norm. Here's a thing.

Even if it didn't happen. Uh-huh. The fact that these men told this story like it was true about their workplace, that says something, don't you agree? I feel like there is some form of truth to this story. but it's not how they said it happened. I think it's very possible they were fucking around with the blower and they're like, what if we shoved it up your butt?

And then just did it. Norm, I submit that you are an agent of evil for not fully believing this story. Fine. And I'm going to use the old-timey podcast Patreon funds to buy an air compressor or what is it, a blower, is it? and we're going to test it out on you and see what happens. Okay. We're in the red right now because we paid for Judge Judy's appearance. That's true.

Okay, we'll have to wait a bit. That's fine. Wait for that blower to go on clearance, please. Are you ready for another story that involves holes? Sure. This one doesn't have any bloody farts in it. All right. For a lot of these guys, a big part of this job was punching holes into the side of the mountain.

Punching? Well, not with their hands. There's no way it's happening. The technique is called honeycombing, and basically these guys would drill holes into the side of the mountain, all in a line, all at the same depth or whatever depth they were told. Yes. Interesting.

And then that section of rock would be much easier to slide off. That was kind of the final step to get the smooth surface for George Washington's creamy skin. Maybe he's born with it. Maybe it's honeycomb. So the guys would do that, and, you know, it creates this kind of funny-looking takeaway. They'd end up removing pieces of granite that had this perfect honeycomb pattern in it. It was kind of cool. And under normal circumstances, that might be considered trash.

But these guys needed drinking money. They needed money for their families. Put food on the table. They sell it as like souvenirs. Yeah. Yeah. But they were a little sneaky about it. they noticed that Mount Rushmore was already becoming a bit of a tourist attraction,

just the fact that they were up there to turn people in. Guys on swings up high, chisling on a mountain. Filling each other's buttholes with air. Shuffing blowers up their butts and pulling the trigger. People would come out, pack a lunch, watch the guys work, and the guys thought, you know, there's a way to make some money off of this. tourists were not allowed near where the work was being done for obvious reasons but there was this spot at the bottom of the mountain

where a dude would just fill up a cart of supplies and it would be cabled up to the mountaintop and inevitably tourists would sometimes stop and talk to the guy who worked that job and he always made sure to have one of those honeycomb things nearby and a tourist would be like oh what's this and he'd say they oh you know it came from a mountain part of the work and of course the tourist would be like can I buy it as a souvenir sure and the guy would be like what I can't sell this to you it doesn't even belong to me it belongs to another guy a guy named George Glass he's up at the top of the mountain and the tourist would be like please please please I'll pay you double and the guy'd be like okay I guess but

reverse psychology yeah mm-hmm mm-hmm works every time yep this is like on that movie Homeward Bound when they're having the the wedding, the after party, and sassy, the cat is like, I can get anything I want. And they're like, how? And she goes, oh, just reverse psychology. Oh, yeah. And she's like, and, you know, her owner picks her up. She's like, do you want some shrimp?

She goes, no, I don't. Mm-hmm. You know, and then eventually, oh, I guess I'll have some shrimp. You know, I was going to make fun of you for that. But the second you started telling me the story, that movie played in my head, that's buried deep. That is buried, very deep. I can still picture that cat strutton. Good movie.

Anyway, should we get back to this? Go ahead. Who's stopping you? Not you. So, you know, the guy, you know, the tourist would pay, you know, too much. Or maybe, you know, who knows? They'd pay whatever. And as soon as the tourist would walk away with their honeycomb souvenir,

the guy would wait until that tourist was out of sight, and then he'd call up to the job site and be like, okay, guys, send down some more honeycomb. How big are these honeycomb? I mean, it could be, it's like peeling off skin after a sunburn. Some pieces are little strips, some are big sheets. Oh, gross. Well, that's how it is. That's how honeycombing goes, dear.

Sometimes you get a big piece, sometimes it's small. Yeah, that's disgusting I don't think you've ever been more disgusted The way you are looking at me right now Remember when you bought that like foot peel thing? Oh yeah And it like It takes effect over like a couple weeks

It takes effect over five days You soak your feet in this thing And then your feet completely fall off Over the course of five days It's absolutely disgusting and I love it I love disgusting stuff like that I need to use one of those. Okay, anyway, I'll sell it to you. It's a souvenir. Your skin? I don't want it.

I don't want it to sell it to you, Norm. But now I want it. I'll pay any price. That's right. Mount Rushmore didn't just rely on workers. It relied on workers who knew what they were doing and who, by and large, didn't have to be completely retrained every year. And so that's how, within the span of just a few years, George Washington, Washington's face came together. It's really there. It was on the mountain. Nice. That giant forehead. Gutson Borglum saw the completion of George Washington's face as an opportunity to drum up some much-needed publicity and, of course, more money.

They planned a dedication ceremony on July 4, 1930. It would be a massive event. And a few months beforehand, Gutson decided to, you know, get some buzz going. They needed some buzz. Yeah. And he thought that the best way to do that was to get that 500-word history essay from Calvin Coolidge. He ain't writing that. What?

No. Calvin Coolidge absolutely did this. Was it just bad? Hold on, sir. Okay, they had talked about this piece briefly and Calvin said, yes, I'm going to write it up. And he agreed that Gutson could make minor edits to the piece. Sure, why not? Okay.

Calvin Coolidge did exactly what he'd said he'd do, Norman. He wrote that 500-word history of the United States, and then he sent it to Gutson. Mm-hmm. Getson? Well, just a little while later, the 500-word history written by Calvin Coolidge was in every newspaper. Suddenly, everyone was reading the message that would be etched into stone alongside the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Was it completely different from what Calvin Coolidge originally wrote? Did Gutson make some minor edits to it?

Everyone was like... And Gutson Borglum is the coolest artist, and he has a huge penis. I saw it myself. It's actually bigger than Mount Rushmore. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone was like, what? this is the piece of writing that we want carved into a mountain forever? What did it say? It sucks! It sucks! Wow!

Calvin Coolidge sucks at writing! How embarrassing! Meanwhile, Calvin Coolidge was reading those same newspapers and he was fuming because guess what? That piece of writing that everyone was making fun of... It was not his? No. Yeah. It was not what? he'd sent to Gutson, Gutson had read what Calvin had written and decided that he could do better.

Oh, no. On next week's episode, spot the difference between what Calvin wrote and what Gutson said he wrote. And then sit back in wonder as Gutson spends so much money on the George Washington party that work on the actual monument has to grind to a halt. and then grab something to punch as the U.S. court system attempts to gaslight the Sioux Nation. It'll be sure to be a monumental episode. Wow. Very good, Christian. We had some highs, we had some lows, we had some buttholes, we had some blows. Was that the most depressing episode of an old-timey podcast yet?

Well, it did have some highs and some lows. but they were real lows. Yeah, yeah. It was pretty depressing. Mm-hmm. And it's not over yet, folks. Just everyone leaves. This is too much for me.

What'd you think? I never knew carving Mount Rushmore was so hilarious. It was quite a time. Yeah. No, it is like all the wacky shit that happens when you do something like this. Yeah, when you do something that is so unnecessary and yet requires so much work. I just hate Guts and Borgl him so much. You're going to hate him even more next episode.

I seriously, I had to stop the other day. Stop what? Reading about him. because his personality and his antics were ridiculous. Yeah, this guy's... He's like a poopy diapered baby running around accusing everyone of wrongdoing. And I hate it. Yeah.

I mean, he starts... Spoilers. When he gets in a little poopy mood, he starts blaming the workers. You know, everything's everyone else's fault. That's what Hitler was like, too. Well. I'm not comparing. I'm not saying Guts and Borglam is Adolf Hitler, but I'm saying like...

But we've also never seen them in the same place at once. Well, Gutson Borglam was anti-Semitic. He blamed everyone else for his problems. He's racist. Artist. Oh. Adolf Hitler was an artist. You know what?

It's a good thing Gutson stuck with art. How about that? There you go. And... Anyway. He loved hanging out at the Great Wolf Lodge. Problematic place. Yeah.

You heard it here first. That's right. All right. Should we wrap this thing up? Let's wrap it up. Kristen, you know what they say about history hoes. We always cite our sources. That's right.

For this episode, I got my information from the book, The Carving of Mount Rushmore by Rex Allen Smith, the documentary Mount Rushmore, as well as reporting from PBS, History.com, and Smithsonian.com. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review

wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok at Old Timey Podcast. And you can follow us individually on Instagram. I'm Kristen Pitts-Keruso, and he's gaming historian.

And until next time, Totaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Bye! Bye! Bye!