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It was the dust that he hated most. Clouds in the high, thin, South Dakotan air, that choked him as he dangled in a harness on the mountainside. The men wielded jackhammers, drilling holes so sticks of dynamite could be pressed into the rock. Then, as they retreated on a president’s head—for a lunch of meatloaf sandwiches, if lucky—fuses fizzed and granite blasted off below. Few bothered with masks, except when the boss, Gutzon Borglum, came on site. One man snipped a hole in his to let him smoke as he drilled. In any case the damned particles got “into your eyes, ears, hair, nose and worst of all your throat.”
From 1938 to 1940 Nick Clifford was on Mount Rushmore, first as dogsbody and wood-chopper, then as labourer and winchman. Signed up before he was a man, he suspected they sought out his baseball skills. The chief’s son loved the game and his weekend team needed a pitcher. In the week he enjoyed winching best. For that you perched on one or other president’s skull, taking in a grand view of the Black Hills, and moved others’ harnesses into place. Hourly pay was good for the tail end of the Depression: 50 cents, rising to a heady $1.25 for a skilled sculptor. Work stopped in winter. No one got overtime.
https://www.economist.com/united-sta...mount-rushmore
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