FYI - Mount Rushmore and the Freemasons

Mount Rushmore is a real place with a real connection to Freemasonry, but the idea that it was secretly designed as a Masonic monument or part of a Freemason conspiracy goes well beyond the evidence.

The monument, officially the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, is in South Dakota's Black Hills. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum began the project in 1927, and the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were carved into the mountain. Work continued until 1941, when it stopped because funding ran out and Borglum died.

So where does Freemasonry enter the story?

The strongest genuine connection is George Washington.

Washington was a Freemason. He was initiated into Fredericksburg Lodge No. 4 in Virginia in 1752 and remained associated with Freemasonry throughout his life. He is one of the most famous Freemasons in American history.

There are also Masonic connections involving other people associated with the monument and its construction. Borglum himself had Masonic connections, and there are Masonic traditions surrounding some of the political and civic figures involved with the project.

This provides genuine historical material for conspiracy theories.

But there's an important distinction:

"There were Freemasons involved with Mount Rushmore" is substantially different from:

"Mount Rushmore was secretly designed as a giant Masonic symbol."

The first is historically supportable. The second has not been demonstrated.

The "hidden symbols" theories

Conspiracy theories sometimes claim that the four presidents represent secret Masonic concepts or that the mountain contains hidden geometry, occult symbolism or encoded messages.

You'll encounter claims involving things such as:

• the number four;
• the positioning of the presidents;
• geometric relationships between the faces;
• Washington's association with Freemasonry;
• alleged secret chambers;
• supposed Masonic symbolism in the surrounding landscape.

Some versions go much further and claim that Mount Rushmore represents a giant Masonic initiation or occult monument.

There isn't convincing historical evidence for that interpretation.

There really IS a secret room

Here's where things get particularly interesting. 😲

Mount Rushmore actually contains a secret chamber called the Hall of Records.

But "secret" makes it sound much more sinister than it was.

Borglum wanted to create a great chamber behind the sculpture containing important documents and information about American history. Construction began on it in 1938, but the project was abandoned when the government decided that completing the faces was the priority.

The unfinished chamber was eventually sealed.

In 1998, a repository containing porcelain panels with historical information—including the text of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and biographies of the presidents—was placed inside the chamber.

So conspiracy theorists aren't completely wrong when they say:

"There's a hidden chamber inside Mount Rushmore."

There really is.

The leap comes when that fact is turned into:

"Therefore, Mount Rushmore contains a secret Masonic message."

There's no solid evidence establishing that.

What about the presidents themselves?

The selection of the four presidents also has a straightforward historical explanation.

Borglum chose them because he regarded them as representing major periods and developments in American history:

George Washington — birth of the United States

Thomas Jefferson — expansion and development of the republic

Abraham Lincoln — preservation of the Union and abolition of slavery

Theodore Roosevelt — development and expansion of the United States in the modern era

That explanation is much better supported by the historical record than a Masonic interpretation.

There's an even bigger controversy surrounding Mount Rushmore

The Masonic conspiracy theory is actually one of the less consequential controversies surrounding the monument.

The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota, and the United States acquired the Black Hills following the 1876 Black Hills conflict despite the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which had recognised the region as part of the Great Sioux Reservation.

The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980) that the United States had effectively taken the Black Hills without just compensation. The Lakota have historically rejected the monetary settlement and continued to seek return of the land.

There's also the uncomfortable fact that Mount Rushmore was carved into a mountain that was already culturally and spiritually significant to the Lakota.

So if you're looking at Mount Rushmore through the lens of hidden history, the land and Indigenous history provide a much more firmly documented controversy than the Masonic conspiracy theory.

In short: yes, there are genuine Masonic connections around Mount Rushmore, particularly through Washington and some of the people involved. Yes, there is an actual hidden chamber. But there is no good historical evidence that Mount Rushmore was secretly constructed as a giant Freemason monument. 🏔️🔺

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model