(bright music) - [Narrator] In the Black
Hills of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore stands
unrivaled in the world. A tribute to the
heroes and ideas that shaped a great nation. We'll celebrate this sky
high hail to the chiefs, from its monumental
construction, to its monumental meaning
as a shrine of democracy. - Bill Dudy, United
States Air Force. - [Narrator] We'll
fire up for a float. Get up close to a
memorial in the making. And in this slice of
the American West, discover a little Yellowstone,
and other wonders. - It's cold. - [Narrator] Of a
region rich in history, mystery, and majesty. (dramatic orchestral music) Rising like an island in
the Great American Plains, the Lakota Sioux
named it, Paha Sapa. - Which means, 'hills
that are black.' And in fact, when one is
approaching the Black Hills from the northern Great Plains, especially from the east. There's a dark
appearance to that ridge of forested mountains. - [Narrator] Where thick
forests coat the landscape, rock, dating back
millions of years, is among the oldest in
the western United States. Uplift of the Black Hills
some 70 million years ago pushed granite right
out of the Earth, to create a mountaintop, perfect for carving a
long-lasting sculpture. In the beginning, no
roads led to Rushmore. To make getting
there an adventure, Senator Peter Norbeck, one
of the founding fathers, traveled by foot and horseback, to map out a 68-mile
scenic route, that takes in the
sweeping beauty. Where wildlife graze roadside. A stretch winds by
slender granite shafts, dubbed, 'the needles.' Along the Iron Mountain Road, art meets engineering. Called 'The Impossible Road,' it twists and turns across
the crest of a mountain. Spiraling ramps,
or pigtail bridges, raise the elevation while
limiting the mileage. Hairpin curves, and
a slow speed limit, allow time to take in the views. One of Norbeck's
major achievements, a series of single-lane tunnels, that frame the faces
of Mount Rushmore from the front
window, and rear view. Around every turn, the
anticipation builds, until you reach the
shrine of democracy. Four presidents gaze
upon the Avenue of Flags, from 56 states, territories
and commonwealths, the first thing that
strikes any visitor is the majesty of the place. - It's a symbol of freedom
and liberty and democracy, but until you actually see it, until you see all these flags, and you think about the symbol
of what this really means, it's a conglomeration of
people coming together, with one idea of what
a country should be. - It is stunning, it's
awesome, it's inspiring, and it brings up all sorts
of feelings of patriotism. - [Narrator] The
faces of Rushmore, represent the first 150
years of America's history. George Washington is the
Father of our Country. Thomas Jefferson wrote the
Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln led to
a rebirth of freedom, and saved the Union. And Teddy Roosevelt, the
father of conservation, set America on a
course to world power. To add to the quintessential
American experience, the National Park Services
Museum and Visitors Center, interprets the history and
meaning of Mount Rushmore. You might find it surprising
that presidential portraits where not part of
the original plan. In 1923, when state
historian Doan Robinson came up with the idea
to sculpt western heroes into a spiky rock formation
known as 'The Needles,' his goal wasn't lofty. He wanted to boost tourism. - He wasn't thinking
about Mount Rushmore, and he wasn't thinking
about presidents. He wanted to take those
individual granite spires, and he wanted to carve
western figures in those. People like Buffalo Bill, Lewis
and Clark, Chief Red Cloud. - [Narrator] Fate intervened, what Robinson contacted
sculptor Gutzon Borglum, an artist who
always thought big. - Right from the beginning, he wasn't thinking much
of western figures. He says it's too regional. What he wanted to do
was on national focus, and he wanted to do
it with presidents. - [Narrator] He chose Mount
Rushmore, for its size, the quality of the rock, and the fact that it's in
sunlight most of the day. Sculpting a mountain
was epic in scope, an undertaking Borglum
believed to be on par with the Great
Pyramids of Egypt, the Sphinx, China's
giant Buddha, and other world wonders. At age 60, the sculptor
was up to the task. - We're carving here in the great state
path of South Dakota, the greatest memorial
that has ever been conceived by civilization. - [Narrator] Among his previous
successful public projects, The Seated Lincoln
in Newark, New Jersey captured a reflective president during the trying
times of the Civil War. The Wars of the Nation Memorial, features life-size figures of
soldiers, sailors, and horses. It was the largest bronze
casting in America in 1926. Initially there were only
going to be three portraits. Washington was the focal point, between Jefferson and Lincoln. (explosion)
Carving Jefferson went smoothly, until they
hit a patch of cracked rock around his mouth, and had to
blast the work in progress right off the mountain. Jefferson was moved to the
other side of Washington, and later, Roosevelt
was added to the lineup. The most prominent
figure on the memorial, is the Father of our Country. Washington's head
is 60 feet tall. His nose stretches 21 feet, and his eyes are 11 feet wide. If the presidents
were full figures, they would measure 465
feet from head to toe. The massive scale has made the Mount Rushmore
National Memorial, one of America's
premier patriotic sites. Building the Mount Rushmore
Memorial was monumental, a project with no precedent. On a sculpture this massive, one defect in the rock
could spell disaster. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum had
no idea what he would find, or where he would find funding. But he never let that
stand in his way. - He was an artist with
his eye on the stars. He was ready, he says
we're gonna spend money they didn't have, to reach the greater goal. - [Narrator] Design
began in a studio at the base of the mountain. - This building that
we're in right now was built in 1939. This was the third
sculpting studio. - [Narrator] It's here, working
models of the presidents were first sculpted in plaster. - This was his ninth model, and the reason he had
so many was because he knew that if he
ran into problems with the mountain and the
rock, he couldn't change that. So he would come back
to his drawing board and change his model. - [Narrator] The key
to carving a mountain? A system Borglum adapted
from ancient times. A vertical axis was placed
on the head of the 3-D model. - As a protractor
measured in degrees, a boom, which is
nothing but a ruler, would extend, retract,
swing left, swing right, in a plumb bob on a wire. - [Narrator] Proportions
were one to 12, so inches easily
converted to feet. - If we put this on top
of Washington's head, he would align everything
up, get the angles right, drop the plumb bob down, to where Washington's nose is, 'cause that's the first
point of reference. - [Narrator] To transpose
dimensions to the mountain top, the axis and boom became
the center of the universe. 40 inches on the
model became 40 feet. They would paint a
mark in the mountain, and begin to block out the nose. To access the figures, workers used another Borglum
invention, the bosun's chair. - It was a chair
like a swing seat, that you would sit in, and is like a big
thick leather strap, like a weightlifter's belt. You tie that around you, and you were in that chair, you could fall out if
you even wanted to. - [Narrator] Borglum could
create the prototype, he had the access, but he couldn't carve a
mountain with his own hands. - Borglum's hands became people who were named Poot Leach, and Whiskey Art
Johnson, Howdy Peterson, Red Anderson, they're the
men who carved the mountain. And this is one of
the marvels to me, that it was accomplished, because they didn't
know anything about
carving mountains. And Borglum was
able to teach them. - I want Teddy to go down
under the bridge here, we're working on the wig now, and check up all those
points under the wig, where the ear would be. - [Narrator] Mount Rushmore
was also made possible by two inventions, the jackhammer
drill, and dynamite. (explosion) In the 1860's, Alfred Nobel,
of the Nobel Prize fame, combined nitroglycerin
and silica, to form an explosive
paste that could be shaped into a cylinder,
and inserted into rock. Each day, workers called
the Keystone Boys, headed up the mountain. (yelling) These blasters and drillers, part craftsmen, part daredevils, removed 450,000 tons of rock. Don 'Nick' Clifford was
17 when he hired on. - The working conditions
were good, I think, back in those days, and we never had a
fatality on the mountain. We had a lot of close calls,
but we never had a fatality. - [Narrator] All in
all, 400 men and women toiled on the mountain. They became skilled at varying the size and location
of the blasts. Drilling was the worst job. Drills were heavy, and
drill bits didn't last. - And you had a very good day, if you go in there and drill
a foot, maybe 18 inches, before this drill became dull. - [Narrator] When they were
within three to six inches of the carving surfaces, Borglum taught them a
technique to weaken the rock. - This is actual rock
from the mountain, and let's say you had to
remove this piece of rock from underneath someone's
nose or something. He instructed his
men to drill holes approximately one inch apart. This is called
honeycombing the granite. You would get in
these holes like this, give it a good smack, and what that process did was, that would set up
vibrations behind the rock, and it would just start
popping off the mountain. - [Narrator] For
the final finesse, they meticulously
carved features, like Lincoln's 16-inch mole, and Roosevelt's
20-foot mustache. A hand face or a bumper tool, smoothed out every square inch. The memorial took
14 years to finish. Lack of funding brought the
work to a halt many times, but the men persevered. - When the whistle blew
and there was money again, they would come back. Time after time,
layoff after layoff. Red Anderson, he said
at first we all thought this was just an idea,
just a crazy idea at that. But it was a job
so we would do it. And then he said after
a while, over time, we all became truly
dedicated to it. - It's just a great feeling. I enjoy every time I come up
here to look at the mountain, and think about what it is, and what I did to help carve it. - [Narrator] In a canyon
behind the presidents, the men excavated a cave
called, 'The Hall of Records,' where Borglum envisioned a
museum of American history. In 1998, his dream
was somewhat realized, when enameled panels telling
the story of the memorial, were buried here
in a time capsule. (dramatic orchestral music) The work on the Mount
Rushmore National Memorial began in October of 1927. The Black Hills granite
core is fairly solid, yet there were
plenty of problems. - If you look at Mount Rushmore, Mount Rushmore looks
the way it does today, primarily because of geology. Jefferson got moved. Roosevelt is pushed as far
back as they had rock to do. There's no more rock
left behind Roosevelt. And the reason they
pushed him back so far, was there was some
fractures that they needed to get behind, that they
didn't want to carve Roosevelt in. It just barely clips
Lincoln in his hair, and they had to move Lincoln
back to get behind that. - [Narrator] The author of the
Declaration of Independence continued to be problematic. While the other presidents
are gazing at the horizon, Jefferson's head tilts up. - Well a lot of people
say that's because Jefferson was a visionary, he's looking out
over the horizon. Well the truth is,
there's a crack up there that runs through
Jefferson's cheek. And one that went
down through his nose. Borglum had to tilt the head
back and up a little bit. - [Narrator] They hit a chunk
of quartz along the lip. Rock too hard to shape. It had to be replaced
with granite. The only patch on the memorial. For Borglum the eyes
conveyed the essence of each great leader. The pupil is a granite shaft. The iris is in effect, a shadow
drilled with a jackhammer. Roosevelt has the
illusion of glasses. Only the nose bridge
and pieces under the eye are actually in place. Originally the presidents were
to be carved to the waist. A band of mica schist, a type of rock that crumbles, put an end to the idea. - So what's not done
on the mountain, are the three buttons on
George Washington's coat, Lincoln's ear, shoulder,
and fourth knuckle. There are three knuckles
on the mountain. However, many of us
find it very symbolic that Lincoln is unfinished, because so was his presidency. - [Narrator] Gutzon Borglum
did everything in his power to keep the project going. When he died in 1941, his
son Lincoln took over. Eight months later, on
the eve of World War II, Congress declared the
monument complete, at a cost of 989,992
dollars and 32 cents. A price that now
seems like a bargain, for one of America's
most cherished sites. Today, if you gaze
up to see something that looks like a
fly on the wall, it's most likely the
National Park Service maintenance team at work. As nature takes its toll, preservation poses a
unique set of problems. First and foremost, the crew has to be skilled at
mountain-climbing. - There's lots of loose
stuff there, watch your rope, knocking loose stuff above you. - [Narrator] Even
though it's erosion rate is a mere one inch
every 10,000 years, Rushmore continues to age. The natural freezing
and expansion of water, causes rock to fracture. - Okay, that one
checks out fine. Go ahead and move
on to gauge two. - [Narrator] To
detect movement 24-7, Rushmore has been wired. - [Man On Radio] The cover
is G dash zero seven. - [Narrator] 36 gauges record
even the slightest motion. Any physical change
is checked out. - The central
Black Hills granite is subject to failure
in crack systems, and sometimes big chunks
fall off the rocks here. And of course, we work
hard to prevent that at Mount Rushmore
by sealing cracks. - [Narrator] Since the 1980's, the top of the sculpture,
and vertical cracks, have been caulked with
a silicone sealant, but water continues
to be trouble. - From my perspective right
now, there's two issues. There's the keeping
the water out, which is the whole fracture
network that we worry about, but then there's really, how do you get the water
off in the expedient manner? - [Narrator] Lichen, a
green fungus-like growth was an issue. The solution? The presidents had their faces
washed for the first time, courtesy of the Karcher Company. This manufacturer
of pressure washer dirt-blasting technology, has cleaned some of the world's
most precious landmarks, using only 200 degree
pressurized H2O. A whiter, brighter Rushmore now looks much like it did
when it was first created. (birds singing) It's fitting that once a
year, on Independence Day, the memorial becomes
fireworks central. The Mount Rushmore
National Memorial Society, the National Park Service, and the Zambelli
Fireworks Company, team up for a
pyrotechnic display, destined to thrill and chill. - The fireworks company is
very invested in the program. They bring us their
best and their newest shells and choreography
techniques. - [Narrator] Like
everything on the monument, pulling it off is
a logistical feat. - And then we have to decide that there's certain
pyrotechnic effects, like low-hanging type
comets and stars, that could create a
problem as a fire hazard, so that we have to pick and
choose the pyrotechnic effects, especially with Mount
Rushmore in mind. - [Narrator] Handpicked
fireworks are loaded with TLC. - So we're loading the fireworks
into the tubes right now, placing an electric
igniter into the fuse. The igniter's going
to the binding post where it gets a charge and sets off the
igniter inside the fuse, and when that lights it
also ignites a time fuse, that burns inside to
the center of the shell, so that when it reaches
its apex, then it bursts. - [Narrator] For a program
fit for the presidents, a final tech check tests
communication and connections, to insure everything
fires on cue. (fireworks exploding) The sky turns into a
star-spangled canvas of colors. Mount Rushmore lights up with one of the
world's greatest shows. Beyond Mount Rushmore
there's much to explore. The Black Hills has been
a crossroads for people for thousands of years. (train whistle blowing) The railroad is a
part of that history. - As we pass the road over
on the left-hand side, we're coming into a little mining community
called, Kennedyville. - [Narrator] For a
step back in time, the 1880's steam train chugs
along an old mining spur line, that once carried
cargo, people, and gold from them thar hills. Traveling north, the
most popular stop is the infamous Deadwood. Where the wild west lives on. The legendary mining
town once swarmed with a host of
colorful characters. This National Historic
Landmark with a lawless past, where Wild Bill Hickock
played his last hand, now allows legalized
gaming, 24 hours a day. (Native American drumming) The region is also rich in
Native American history. In the Treaty of 1868, the Hills were forever
granted to the Sioux nation. - In many ways The Black
Hills are a microcosm for all of western history. Native peoples contested
for possession of it. Eventually the Sioux came
to dominate the region, and it wasn't until 1874 the government really
penetrated the Black Hills, and of course that
expedition was led by one of the most flamboyant of all
of our western characters, George Armstrong Custer. His Black Hills expedition
was to look for a fort, but instead they
discovered gold. - [Narrator] And
there was a lot of it. Continuously operating
for 126 years, the Home State Gold Mine was the oldest,
deepest, and largest producing goldmine in
the western hemisphere, before closing in 2002. And there were other minerals. Mount Rushmore was named
for Charles Rushmore, a New York lawyer who came out to check on tin mining claims. - Now this was land
guaranteed to the Sioux by the Treaty of 1868, but the government refused
to uphold the treaty. The Hills were
overrun by miners, and the Sioux were
forced by the government to sign away the Hills. Of course, not without cost. Custer and the 7th
Cavalry marched west to force the Indians to do so and met their fate
at Little Big Horn. - [Narrator] In
the 20th century, the Sioux fought a
different kind of fight. The question of the
ownership of the Black Hills went all the way to
the Supreme Court. In 1980, the Court ruled in
favor of the Sioux nation, awarding them over
100 million dollars as compensation for
the treaty violation. - The Sioux were given an
enormous cash settlement for the Hills, which
has grown exponentially because of interest since
the settlement was made, but they refused to accept it. They're holding out for the
land, they don't want the money. - [Narrator] Mount Rushmore is preserved as a
national monument. The fate of the surrounding
lands remains unresolved. 17 miles away from
Mount Rushmore, on Thunderhead Mountain, (explosion) Black Hills granite
is being shaped into a gigantic 3-D
sculpture of Crazy Horse, the warrior, who along
with Sitting Bull, defeated General Custer
at Little Big Horn. The scale is massive. In fact, Washington, Jefferson,
Roosevelt, and Lincoln, could all fit on
Crazy Horse's head. Depending totally
on private funding, the monument is a
work in progress, intended to resemble the model. To date, only the
face is completed. It all began when Sioux
Chief Henry Standing Bear contacted sculptor
Korczak Ziolkowski. - He invited Korczak
into the Black Hills to carve this mountain, because he said that American
Indians have their heroes too. Crazy Horse represented the
true warrior of the Lakotas, and he represents that quality
of our Native American, that we are survivors. - At first they really
just wanted to do the head, but Korczak said we've gotta
do a really colossal thing for the Native Americans,
they wanted the whole horse. - [Narrator] The Memorial
to the Sioux Nation, was a lifelong obsession
for the sculptor, who never took a salary, and labored on it for 34
years until his death in 1982. Nearby, a visitors
center celebrates Native American art and culture. The Ziolkowski family
has taken over the task of finishing the monument with donations to the Crazy
Horse Memorial Foundation. Mountain carving technology has improved since
Mount Rushmore. Drilling machines dig
deep into the rock to create horizontal
and vertical bore
holes for explosives. At Rushmore, the principal
tool was dynamite. - Now if we were to drop
this stick of dynamite, as you can see this bore
hole here is quite lengthy, and about eight feet in length, so we drop that down, and then
we put our stemming in there. Now we've got all that
energy confined at the toe. To carve Crazy Horse, detonating cord spreads the
explosives over a broader area. - And there's different sizes, the greater the diameter, the larger the charge
for the explosives. So what we do with
detonating cord, is we drop that
cord down the hole, and as you can see now,
from top to bottom, if this is all the
way at the bottom, and coming out the hole,
we have now distributed that explosive throughout
the whole bore hole. - [Narrator] Blasting cap
technology has also evolved. - You can't just go detonate
a stick of dynamite, you'd blow yourself up. But you can light a fuse that
would then detonate the cap, which would then detonate
that stick of explosive. - [Narrator] A computer
chip in the blasting cap sets off a series of explosions. Each cap is queried to
insure it explodes properly. - And that gives you a whole
'nother level of safety in terms of being sure that
all the caps are detonated. - [Announcer] Fire in the
hole, fire in the hole. (explosion) - We do not want to put
shock back into the mountain, so by using an
explosive that creates what's known in the
explosive industry, a brisance type of explosion, a much higher shock, or a much higher clean cutting, as opposed to dynamite
has gas pressure that builds up and actually
can break the rock behind it. - [Narrator] Preparation
for carving the horse's head is now underway. So far, some eight
million tons of rock has been excavated
off the mountain. At 62 and a half stories tall, when completed,
Crazy Horse will be one of the largest manmade
monuments in the world. Many of Mount Rushmore's over
2.7 million annual visitors make a sweeping tour
of the Black Hills. - Well here we go. - [Narrator] To get
the bigger picture, outside the Mount Rushmore
National Memorial, a hot air balloon is the ticket. (gas rushing) Fire it up and float across
ruggedly majestic country. When large stands of
100-foot ponderosa pines coat the landscape, some of
the oldest were seedlings when Columbus landed
on the continent. - The Black Hills is
a very, very beautiful and interesting area. It's due to the fact that we're a 4,000 foot
elevated mountain mass, in the sea of the Great Plains, different climate
regimes, different soils, different vegetation,
different wildlife, and there are other national
parks and state parks and beautiful areas in
the national forest. Custer State Park is
one of the nation's most magnificent state parks. - [Narrator] Custer State Park, one of the largest
state parks in the US, is home to the State Game Lodge. This simple stone
and log structure is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. It served as the
summer White House for President Calvin
Coolidge in 1927. The president played a part
in the Mount Rushmore story. While staying at
this summer retreat, Coolidge agreed to participate in a formal dedication ceremony. In his speech, he called Mount
Rushmore a National Monument. He later pledged the federal
support that made it possible. The State Game Lodge is
surrounded by a preserve. Safari jeep tours get you
up close to the wildlife. When you see a faun horn, you're looking at a species
native to North America that's been around for
hundreds of thousands of years. This mature buck keeps
his harem of does intact. Whisking across the
grasses marks territory. Glands in the horns
and face leave a scent to tell other males
not to mess with him. Custer State Park adjoins
Wind Cave National Park, originally set aside by
President Teddy Roosevelt to protect what's
beneath the Earth. Wind Cave gets its name from the only known
natural entrance, where you can see
the cave breathe. - It's cold. (giggling) - The barometric pressure
is higher outside the cave, then inside the cave that
pressure tries to equal out, so all that wind will
rush into the cave, so we actually
call that inhaling, and if it's the other way, if it's lower outside
than in the cave, all that pressure goes that way, and forces all that
wind out of the cave, obviously we call that exhaling. (wind blowing) - [Narrator] Where winds
rush, it's a sacred site for the Lakota Sioux. - Wind Cave is a story
of how the Lakotas lived as spirits
in the underworld, and came out through wind cave and became physical beings, and were called the
(Native American name) or the Buffalo People. - [Narrator] In this
hidden underworld, a complex maze of passageways
leads into darkness. - Most of the cave
development occurred after the Black
Hills were uplifted about 60 to 65
million years ago. - [Narrator] A lacy calcite
formation called 'boxwork' is extremely rare. Above ground, Wind Cave is
nicknamed 'Little Yellowstone,' for the diversity of wildlife. (elk whistling) Migrating herds of elk roam
miles of rolling grasslands, where there are plenty
of signs of them. - The bull that carried
this was probably in his absolute prime, something in the seven,
eight-year-old neighborhood. It was weighs probably 12, 15 pounds, maybe even
pushing the 20-pound mark maybe. - [Narrator] It takes a
bull elk about three months to produce a full
set of antlers, that
they eventually shed. In the wild, the remains
don't go to waste. - The antlers lay
on the ground, here, at Wind Cave National Park, and they provide additional
sources of calcium and phosphorous for a whole
host of other animals. (prairie dogs chattering) Wind Cave has over 24 hundred
acres of prairie dog towns. This member of the rodent family does its part in the
ecological scheme of things. Underground burrows provide a
habitat for several species. Prairie dogs take
down prairie grasses. This in turn
stimulates new growth, the preferred
vegetation for bison. - I want to go to
a colony that's got quite a few holes
right around it. - [Narrator] Normally
on high alert, this bite-sized creature
has many predators. After a 30-year
absence, one former foe is back from the
brink of extinction. Thanks to a captive
breeding program, the black-footed ferret
is being reintroduced. This rare mammal's diet
is 90% prairie dog. - There you go. That's great. - [Narrator] Always on the move, the park has a herd of
400 bison or buffalo. Over-hunting and crossbreeding
nearly eradicated this magnificent creature
by the late 1880's. In 2001, scientists from
Texas A & M University made a startling discovery. - All our bison came
from two introductions. We had some bison that
were originally brought from Yellowstone National Park, and we had a few bison that
were originally brought from the New York
Zoological Gardens. It so happened that both
of those sets of animals were absolutely pure bison, that there had not
been any interbreeding with domestic cattle. - [Narrator] With DNA
most closely linked to the original bison that
roamed the Great Plains, the preservation of this
icon of the American west, is an amazing success story. In the Black Hills all that
glitters isn't necessarily gold. West of Wind Cave, Jewel
Cave National Monument protects the world's
second longest cave, famous for its shimmering
calcite crystals. - [Ranger] Jewel Cave is
formed in a layer of limestone. Limestone is a sedimentary rock, that's about 400 to 600 feet
thick throughout Jewel Cave. - [Narrator] A variety
of unearthly formations continue to evolve. The 'Soda Straw', a stalactite,
is hollow on the inside. One feature, called 'Drapery', takes on many shapes and sizes, including the 'Bacon',
a 20-foot-long strand. - Then you'll notice
the colors on it, that's just a
bunch of iron oxide that's in the ground here, and iron oxide obviously is gonna give you
that red type of color when you see it
there on the Bacon. - Make sure you guys check
your lights before we go in. - [Narrator] To explore the
less-traveled parts of the cave, a sport called spelunking
is permitted with a guide. - [Guide] Make
sure you're keeping three points of
contact at all times. - [Narrator] Even though
the scale can be grand, there's a lot of
crawling and climbing. Wear sacrificial clothing. The cave contains
the mineral manganese that leaves a
permanent black stain. Jewel Cave is over
139 miles long, and mapping continues. A recent wind analysis revealed, they may have only
charted five percent of the entire cave system. While geological forces
pushed rock out of the Earth to create the Black Hills, the erosion of
streams and rivers left behind layers of
sediment that became Badlands. A two-hour drive
from Mount Rushmore, Badlands National
Park is a world apart. Spread across 381 square miles, this geologic anomaly of
multi-colored formations captures the imagination. The Badlands Loop winds
in and out of grasslands, where there are signs of
life to break the moonscapes. One of Mother Earth's most
rapidly changing terrains, each year the land erodes
at the rate of an inch, while new badlands
continue to form, in 500,000 years, it
might all be gone. In this slice of
the American West, where Badlands lead to buffalo, and Black Hills
sacred to the Sioux, the roads wind back
to Mount Rushmore. Preserved as a revered
national treasure, each president is
an inspiration. - But it was Roosevelt
that started the process of Americans thinking
about conservation, thinking that these landscapes are an important
part of our story, and are wonderful parts
of this American nation. - [Narrator] From formal
dedications, to Hollywood, the memorial is embedded
in America's psyche. The presidents have been
costars in many movies, including the Hitchcock
classic, "North by Northwest." Over the years, people
have lobbied to have suffragette, Susan B Anthony, and Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt,
John F Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan to the lineup. According to the
National Park Service, an addition is unlikely. - The truth is is three reasons why no one else will
ever be added up there, and one of them is
that the Park Service considers Mount Rushmore
a completed work of art, so it cannot be touched. The second one is, there is no more carvable
rock left up there. Gutzon and Lincoln
Borglum surveyed every square inch
of rock up there, and there's no more
carvable rock left. And the third reason is, if someone could go up there, what type of controversy
would that be? Who would actually
wind up there? - [Narrator] Representing
the first 150 years of America's history, the final four have
withstood the test of time. - These presidents that
are on the mountain, stand for freedom, and
that's what we as soldiers fought for is freedom, so it means quite a bit. - Just to see the flags and
the people and appreciation, it's real heartwarming. Being up here, it really
makes people bond together, and come together, and
realize what we have. - It's just not a piece of rock. It just means America,
this is America right here. - [Speaker] I would like to
invite all military personnel, past and present,
onto the stage. - [Narrator] In the
amphitheater, during
the summer season, floodlights illuminate the
presidents against the sky. (audience applauding) The National Park
Service's evening program ends with an invitation
for members of the military to come forward to
retire the colors. - Joe Fortunado, United
States Marine Corp, Vietnam. - Joe Lenin, US Navy, Korea. - Don Swyer, United
States Air Force. - [Narrator] Sculptor
Gutzon Borglum, was commissioned to create
a tourist attraction. He delivered a
shrine of democracy. (train whistle blowing) In the heart of the Black Hills, the story of America unfolds. An oasis of greenery
surrounded by Great Plains, provides wide open spaces for many of the species
on the continent. Where roads weave
past granite spires, through tunnels that
frame a memorial, millions of people make the
pilgrimage to Mount Rushmore. One man's vision became
a symbol of freedom, and a place to contemplate
those who make it possible. (fireworks exploding) (dramatic orchestral music)
