I was not born there.if it is such a good country, you ought to send the white men now in our country there and let us alone." (Griske, 64-69) The Lakota retaliated and assaulted these violators on several occasions. Diplomatic avenues waned and in January of 1876 the United States commenced its plan to militarily force the Lakota people into submission. The war lasted almost two years. Expeditions would continue in this area as well as the rapid migration of prospectors which became a time known as the Black Hills Gold Rush. .

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             Just as the history of this region exuberated intrigue so did the many persons involved in the actual naming, plotting, and ultimately constructing of the national landmark. In 1885, a New York lawyer by the name of Charles E. Rushmore took an expedition to the Black hills area to check on properties owned by an eastern mining company. He befriended several settlers in the area one of who became his guide. Charles Rushmore asked his guide, William Challis, about the name of the peak in which they were traveling to. Challis replied that it did not have a name at that time but jokingly added, "we'll call the thing Rushmore. The United States Board of Geographic Names officially recognized the name "Mount Rushmore" in June 1930. (Wikipedia.com) Jonah Leroy "Doane " Robinson, a South Dakota historian, concocted the idea of Mount Rushmore. He had learned of the plans for the Confederate Memorial Carving on Stone Mountain in Georgia and thus conceived the same idea in hopes to attract tourism to South Dakota. His original plan was to have the sculpturing of famous people such as Red Cloud, Buffalo Bill, and Lewis and Clark on a series of pillars known as the Needles. (Wikipedia) The man he persuaded to leave his involvement in carving the memorial on Stone Mountain and join his cause for this new South Dakota project would soon reject the Needles notion and set the scope on Mount Rushmore.