In October of 1941, after 14 years of blowing up granite and carving the side of a mountain, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial project came to an end.
However, the sculpting didn’t stop because the faces of the presidents were deemed to be complete and perfect. Instead, it stopped because, in an American construction tradition, the money ran out.
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s* initial plan called for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln to be carved in granite from the waist up. Borglum died in March of 1941, so it’s unclear if he knew the project was ending prior to torso development, but his son, Lincoln, who took over for him**, would’ve certainly received the bad news.