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or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at into History.com. It's October 4th, 1927 on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

60 year old sculptor, Gutsin Borglum holds on tight as a wooden platform was lowered down a cliff

side just below the mountain summit. He appears nervously over the edge and his stomach

clinches as he sees how far above the ground he is.

Three years ago, Gutzen was commissioned by the state of South Dakota to create a mountain

carving so grand that tourists will flock from all over the country to see it.

Today work is about to begin. Gutsin's first task is to prepare his

workspace and that means dynamiting thousands of tons of rock to create a flat surface.

Gutzen picks up a jackhammer from the floor of the platform and positions it carefully against a ledge jutting out from the rock face. He embraces himself, then engages the clutch of the jackhammer.

When he's caught a deep enough hole into the ledge,

Gutzen switches the machine off and slides an explosive charge into the cavity.

Once he's satisfied with his work, Gutzen gives a shout and the platform is hoisted back above the summit.

He's glad to be heading back to safety.

Gutzen's worked in some extreme environments before but never one as

vertigo-inducing as Mount Rushmore. When he's at the summit, he and his

workers then cover their ears and Gutzen detonates the

charge. The transformation of Mount Rushmore has begun.

Over the next few months, Guts and Borglum will blast away another 400,000 tons of rock from the face of the mountain. Once this clean canvas has been created, will the real work begin?

But the sculpting of Mount Rushmore won't be deemed complete for another 14 years, and the monument

...