Reader Ron asks if there is a comprehensive biography of son Lincoln. Unfortunately, Lincoln spent much of his life known only as Gutzon’s boy, which is a pity because he was a talented sculptor and a hard worker. There are books about me that go into some detail about Lincoln’s life, but I am unaware of any that focuses on him. A pity. It is fitting that the visitor’s center at Mount Rushmore is named for him.

Lincoln was born on April 9, 1912, my first child. (His mother, Mary, was my second wife.) Although we named him James Lincoln de la Mothe Borglum, he quickly became known by his middle name. It is no secret that Abraham Lincoln was my favorite president and the subject of the first sculpture I completed that received wide-spread recognition. That bust was displayed in a store window on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1909, the 100 year anniversary of his birth. It was eventually installed at the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

Lincoln was with me when I picked the location for Rushmore. He was there for every dedication ceremony and helped with much of the work. In fact, he probably spent more time working on the mountain than I did.
It was always Lincoln’s ambition to study engineering back East, but I needed his help with the monument. So in 1933, at the age of 21, I made him a full-time pointer, although he didn’t receive any pay at first. The other pointers taught him everything he needed to know and he became a popular member of the crew. He used to park his car near the hoist house so the operator could listen to baseball scores and telephone the scores to the crew on the monument. In fact, during my occasional temper tantrum, it was Lincoln who was able to convince the crew to stay on.

A year later, in 1934, the Mount Rushmore Commission added Lincoln to the payroll at a dollar an hour, decent pay during the Depression. By 1937, still in his 20s, Lincoln would fill in for me as the Project Sculptor when I was on the road. He had a natural artistic talent, practicing in a variety of mediums, and even sold photographs of Rushmore to the Saturday Evening Post, one of the most popular magazines of that era. In 1938, Lincoln became superintendent of the project, and received an annual salary of $4,800. (I might mention, again, that the other engineers who had held that position all quite after disputes with me. Still, I think my temper has been overstated in the past.)

That’s not to say that Lincoln didn’t have a fiery streak. In 1939, I hired Korczak Ziolkowski as my assistant. He had won the gold prize for sculpting at the World’s Fair in New York and I recognized his talent. But Lincoln and Ziolkowski didn’t hit it off and had some trouble deciding the pecking order at the project. My God, they had worked together for only 19 days when they got into a bitter argument that quickly turned into a physical altercation. Imagine it, two men who were in their physical prime from moving and carving stone. Lincoln was a husky young man but Ziolkowski was a giant. Lincoln’s injuries were substantial enough to require medical attention in town. As a result, I was forced to let Ziolkowski go; I certainly couldn’t have the crew think it was OK to assault the superintendent.

At the time of my death, most of the work had been completed, but Lincoln stayed on to finish the hair on Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln and do some work on Lincoln’s collar and head. He finished the work on October 31, 1941. It was his decision to not complete the torsos, as represented on the models.

Lincoln wrote three books about Rushmore, including “My Father’s Mountain,” and created a number of religious works for churches in Texas.
He also served as superintendent of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial from October 1, 1941 through May 15, 1944. Like many of the men who worked on Rushmore, Lincoln’s lungs were permanently scarred from breathing granite dust for so many years. On January 27, 1986, he died in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Lincoln loved Rushmore as much as I did. He once said, “I’ve climbed over every inch of that damn mountain and I still get a lump in my throat every time I see it.”

Thank you for your question.

G. Borglum