By Den Ardinger 32° KCCH

John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, born on March 25, 1867, in St. Charles, Idaho Territory.  He was a visionary American sculptor best known for carving the colossal faces of four U.S. presidents into the granite face of Mount Rushmore. His life was as monumental as his art—marked by ambition, controversy, and a deep engagement with American identity and symbolism.

Borglum was born into a complex family structure rooted in Mormon polygamy. His father, Jens Møller Haugaard Børglum, was a Danish immigrant and woodcarver who had two wives—Christina Mikkelsen Borglum, Gutzon’s mother, and her sister Ida, who was Jens’s first wife. The family eventually left the LDS Church and relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, where Jens earned a medical degree and established a practice. Gutzon’s early years were shaped by this migration and the cultural tensions of his upbringing, which may have contributed to his later fascination with national identity and myth-making.

Educated at St. Mary’s College in Kansas and Creighton Preparatory School in Omaha, Borglum showed early promise in the arts. He studied painting and sculpture at the California School of Design and later in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts, where he absorbed the techniques of classical sculpture and the grandeur of European monumental art. His early works included religious figures for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York and a group sculpture acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art—the first such purchase from a living American sculptor.

Borglum’s career took a dramatic turn when he became involved in large-scale public monuments. He worked briefly on the Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain in Georgia, a project that ended in conflict but foreshadowed his most famous endeavor: Mount Rushmore. Commissioned in 1927, the Mount Rushmore project in the Black Hills of South Dakota, aimed to immortalize George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln as embodiments of American ideals. Borglum saw the monument not merely as art, but as a national shrine and vision of democracy carved in stone.

Beyond his artistic achievements, Borglum was deeply involved in Freemasonry. He was an active member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons having been raised in Howard Lodge #35 in New York City on June 10, 1904.  He became the Worshipful Master there and served in 1910 and 1911.  He later served as the Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of Denmark to the Grand Lodge of New York. His Masonic affiliations extended into the Scottish Rite, where he received the Degrees in the New York City Consistory on October 25, 1907.  The interest in symbolism and ritual often intersected with his themes of enlightenment, patriotism, and moral virtue.  His Masonic values resonated in all his monumental works. The Masonic emphasis on craftsmanship, legacy, and moral architecture found literal expression in Borglum’s sculptures, which he viewed as vehicles for civic education and national unity.

Borglum’s public life was as dramatic as his artistic one. He was politically active, aligning with Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive “Bull Moose” Party.  He participated in the 1913 New York Armory Show, which introduced modern art to America.  His enduring contribution to American culture remains Mount Rushmore, a work that continues to inspire awe and debate even today.

Gutzon Borglum died at the age of 73 of a heart attack on March 6, 1941, in Chicago, just months before Mount Rushmore was declared complete. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, alongside his second wife, Mary Montgomery Williams Borglum. His son, Lincoln Borglum, carried on his work at Mount Rushmore, ensuring that the monument and the mythos it represents would endure.

In stone, Borglum carved not just faces, but ideals. Through Freemasonry, he found a philosophical framework for his art. And through his life, he left a legacy as complex and enduring as the granite he shaped.

Gutzon Borglum, more than a man, a Scottish Rite Mason.