An aerial view of Mount Rushmore revealing the monument and the surrounding landscape. Mount Rushmore felt a lot more impressive when I was younger, at least until I learned what it was originally supposed to become. In the mid-1920s, sculptor Gutzon Borglum envisioned a far more ambitious monument. His original design planned to carve the presidents down to their waists, complete with hands and symbolic details representing their accomplishments, turning the mountain into a massive historical narrative rather than just four faces. The vision was eventually reduced because of funding problems, engineering difficulties with the granite, and Borglum’s death in 1941. Construction ended with only the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln completed.(Historic Vids)