A driller uses a jackhammer drill to honeycomb the granite while carving Mount Rushmore. This was one of the final stages in removing the excess rock during the carving process. A few hundred workers, who were usually miners, sculptors, or rock climbers, used dynamite, jackhammering, and chiseling to sculpt the model from the mountain. A stairway was constructed to the top of the mountain first and ropes fixed. Workers were supported by harnesses attached to the ropes. Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, featuring 60-foot replicas of the heads of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Although the initial concept called for each president to be depicted from head to waist, lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941. Mount Rushmore has become an iconic symbol of the United States, and has appeared in works of fiction, and has been discussed or depicted in other popular works. It attracts over tthree million people annually. Photographed by Lincoln Borglum, undated.