As the 2016 major league baseball season winds down, it’s worth noting that baseball was a big part of the carving of Mount Rushmore.
You would think that after climbing up and down the rock face all week, workers would be taking it easy on the weekend.
But in fact, Mount Rushmore had its own baseball team. And a competitive one, at that. In 1939, the Rushmore team, also known as the Keystone Boys, advanced to the state championship and made it to the semifinals.
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum was proud of his team. In fact, if you had a good pitching arm, you could probably get a job as a carver on Mount Rushmore. His son, Lincoln Borglum was a baseball fanatic, and he was very involved in recruiting and hiring workers/players who could help Rushmore in more ways than one.
There’s a large team photo at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, and the ice cream parlor, Memorial Team Ice Cream, is named in their honor.