Fireworks back to Mount Rushmore for 250th birthday in 2026
Fireworks will be revived in 2026 at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota for the July 4th celebration.
Straight Arrow News
Mount Rushmore is an American icon. The majestic, 60-foot-high sculpted presidential chief overlooking the black hills of South Dakota, has been immortalized in cinemas and remains a bucket list destination for American travelers.
On October 1st, the state’s most recognised landmark marks 100th An anniversary of dedication as a national monument. Although brilliant, it is a site with a history of checkers, loved by some, hatred towards others, and a lasting symbol of America’s complicated past.
“It’s a great point of pride, but for others it’s an evil symbol of the horror that has been done to the Indigenous people,” said Tom Lawrence, a fourth-generation South Dakota local author. “I love Rushmore, but I understand the complicated history behind it.”
More recently, some have come to the idea of adding President Donald Trump’s head to the lineup despite the advice that such feats are structurally impractical. Meanwhile, South Dakota Governor Larry Roden has invited Trump to attend the festival for next year’s Independence Day, marking the 250th of next year.th Anniversary on a site where a fireworks show is scheduled despite tribal opposition.
How was Mount Rushmore created?
By the 1920s, American automobile ownership was growing. And with that was the concept of road trips in an age of unlimited opportunities and Rogers’ wisdom. In 1923, South Dakota historian Doan Robinson took part in a granite bluff 23 miles south of Rapid City, imagining a sculpted monument that could turn the mountainside into a tourist bounty.
“The Black Hills is an absolutely spectacular area, and South Dakota was aiming to portray tourism,” Lawrence said.
Sculptor Gazzon Borgram was chosen to carry out the project.
The site was dedicated to the National Memorial on October 1, 1925, but the sculpture did not begin until two years later. By then, Bolgrum had reconstructed the monument’s focus to express four US Presidents representing elements of American history: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson for its growth, Abraham Lincoln for its development, and Theodore Roosevelt for its development.
Funding was difficult to get. As the National Park Service points out, despite Bolgram’s willingness to finance the project by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, he is confident that he can seek half and match the rest through private donations.
The task was more difficult than he thought, and despite his position, Lawrence said, Boglum constantly lost money.
“He carved a monument, but it was always broken nearby,” he said. “People will say he’ll just go to a gas station in Black Hills, fill the car with gas and drive the car.”
Borglum spent much of the project’s past two years traveling and scrowing for the last funding, Park Service said. He passed away in 1941, when the project was completed. His son Lincoln oversaw the final excavation.
Until recently, the site painted nearly 2.5 million visitors a year before immersing 1.85 million in 2024, according to National Park Service figures.
Why is Mount Rushmore causing controversy?
For the indigenous people of the Great Plains, who have lived in the Black Hills for a long time, the four faces peering into their former homeland represent something completely different. The leaders that emerged in Europe, who oversaw the expansion of white people in Europe and the gods of sacred burial sites, were known to Lakota Su as his grandfather of six.
The 1868 treaty gave Lakota land, but the agreement was cast aside with the discovery of gold. By 1877, seven million acres of Black Hills had been confiscated.
“When they came and started sculptures in the Black Hills, our people didn’t like it, but we didn’t say that even if it was stolen land,” said Darrell Red Cloud, a fifth-generation descendant of Chief Red Cloud, the renowned Oglala Lakota leader who teaches Native American studies at Oglala Lakota University in South Dakota.
In 1970, Oglala Lakota activist Russell is famous for urinating on George Washington’s head in protest during the occupation of a site that he later called a “shrine of hypocrisy” in relation to its reputation as a “shrine of democracy.”
Some include great grandsons of Borglum, while others are seeking the removal of the monument, but others say the more realistic approach is to provide a more complete explanation of the native perspective. Lincoln, for example, is praised for his movement to slavery in America, but is remembered by Lakota for the largest mass execution in American history. It was him when 38 Lakotas were hanged in Minnesota during the Dakota War in 1862.
For a while, Red Cloud served as a guide to Mount Rushmore, where he said he was the only voice that would provide such a perspective. He also gave a cultural presentation at the site Lakota da Kotana Kota Heritage Village, which opened in 2008 along with the presidential pattern of Mount Rushmore.
The site features information on the native origin of the land, but said details remained sparse.
The memorial websites state that “many national park sites occupy spiritual and culturally important places for Indigenous peoples, and have a history that is often damaged by the confiscation and exclusion of Indigenous peoples from these sites.”
“It hurts among our people,” Red Cloud said. “I don’t think it will heal. Telling the truth about what the mountains meant for the people of Lakota would be a big step in the right direction, but I don’t know if that will happen.”
Can I add a fifth face to Mount Rushmore?
Earlier this year, R-FLA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a bill that proposed carving President Donald Trump’s face next to Lincoln, but did not provide details on when the project will take place or how it will be paid. The bill did not advance beyond the House Committee on Natural Resources.
This kind of development is probably not possible.
In a letter written to the then first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1936, Borgrum worked on the idea after the proposal was made to add the face of suffrageist Susan B. Anthony to the monument. He stated that, given the limitations of stones, the concept is probably impossible and does not follow the philosophy of the monument itself.
“If Mount Rushmore were simply an immortal gallery, he would have chosen a mountain range that would have recognized twice as many as the greatest ones that serve longer than most of our official world,” he wrote.
Lawrence said he spoke to experts, similar to the National Park Service. “And they said it was impossible. And it’s a work of art created by someone who was a master of this despite his difficulties. Do you have the right to change the work he has completed?”
As a lifelong resident, he grew up to understand the complex origins of what is a symbol of national pride for him. In some respects, he said, he remains a relic of the past of presents that seek to acknowledge the nuances and imperfections of American history, despite recent efforts to oppose it.
“Growing up, I’ve never heard of the fact that it’s on stolen land,” Lawrence said. “We were told it was a great symbol of the nation. It was on our T-shirts and our license plates. Now we want to understand the whole complicated story.
