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There's a secret room inside Mount Rushmore that's used to store important US documents

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mount rushmore

Right where the frontal lobe of Abraham Lincoln's brain would be, there is instead a secret room that contains the text of America's most important documents.

This is the Hall of Records at Mount Rushmore.

It sounds like something out of "National Treasure" (or, more fittingly, "Richie Rich") but the Hall of Records is a legitimate historical repository.

hall of records entranceConceived in the 1930s by the monument's designer, Gutzon Borglum, the Hall was designed to be a vault for a selection of documents chronicling America's history.

But Borglum died in 1941, which means he never got to see that vision come to life. More than 50 years later, in 1998, monument officials revived the sculptor's dream of installing a record of the country's history inside the Hall.

hall of records mount rushmoreToday, sealed behind a 1,200-pound granite slab and tucked inside a wooden box are the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, a biography of Borglum, and short descriptions of each president featured on the monument. The text of each document is carved into a series of porcelain enamel panels.

Sadly, the Hall is closed to the public (the half-ton slab probably already gave that away). The closest anyone can get is the ruin-like doorway, which is nestled behind a rocky outcropping to the right of Lincoln's head and recedes several feet into the mountain.

hall of records mount rushmoreWhat the present-day Hall doesn't contain are the intricate designs Borglum envisioned for its walls: carved descriptions of America's greatest moments, surrounded by massive illustrations of the Louisiana Purchase.

At least, as far as we know.

Maybe Nicolas Cage knows something we don't.

mount rushmore

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