South Dakota

By Travelog Editorial Team · Updated August 8, 2026

South Dakota is live on Travelog with one city, Keystone, home to Mount Rushmore National Memorial. There's no entrance fee, but a $10 parking fee applies (year-long pass, $5 for seniors 62+, free for active-duty military). Gutzon Borglum's 400-worker crew carved the monument between 1927 and 1941 using dynamite to remove 90% of the roughly 450,000 tons of granite, with zero worker fatalities across the entire 14-year project.

Mount Rushmore's construction story, dynamite, 14 years, and zero deaths, is worth understanding as a genuine engineering and safety achievement, covered in full below.