Car Guy Magazine Car Guy Magazine issue 115 | Page 38

about a half dozen Studebakers on display. An interesting display
of automobiles, considering the emerging airplane influence was the
dominant design cue. Also, for the drivers who feel that their magnificent vehicle isn’t performing like the magazines say it should, they have
94 octane fuel to really put that tiger in your tank. After you top up, be
ready to drive, because most of the good roads branch off of 385.
The premier attraction of the Black Hills is America’s National
Memorial—Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore is situated on Horse
Thief Lake Road (SD 244), an eleven-mile sweeper with gentle turns
and elevation changes, ideal for casual motoring and sight seeing at
the same time. This route will approach Mount Rushmore so George
Washington can be seen in profile against the radiant azure blue sky. As
you continue on SD 244, you will come to the carved—or rather dynamited with the aid of DuPont—out section of the granite mountain.
Under the guidance of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, the heads of the four
presidents were fashioned over a fourteen-year period. The monument
is incomplete compared to the original sculpture, and carving only came
to a stop after Borglum died. As you continue on SD 244 you will come
to the visitor center where you can view the four presidents from the
front, learn about the trials and tribulations involved in bringing this
masterpiece to fruition and you can also get the T-shirt. Gotta have that.
As you leave the memorial and head to the town of Keystone,
make a right on US 16A. This is Iron Mountain Road, another one of
the engineering feats of the Black Hills. Also called the Impossible Road,
it was staked out by Senator Peter Norbeck. The Senator was one of the
major movers and shakers involved in getting the carvings on Mount
Rushmore approved by the people who approve this type of thing,
which wasn’t easy, since this type of thing had never been attempted before. After he had succeeded, he felt there should be a road between the
Game Lodge Road and the Rushmore area. This new road was intended
to be a road of convenience for travelers, not a scenic highway.
Norbeck loved this section of the Hills, and much to the distress
of the highway department, thought that the road should be scenic because of the spectacular views, with the added attribute of convenience.
Norbeck walked the proposed route with a highway engineer, planting
stakes akin to Hansel and Gretel dispersing their bread crumbs. Instead
of marking a route around the base of Iron Mountain, Norbeck staked
out a route over and through the mountain. The engineer, totally dismayed at this proposed route, protested that there was no sense in going over and through the mountain. It would be expensive. It would
be a slow road to build and a slow road to drive on upon completion.
Besides, “The senator was putting those darned stakes in places where a
road would be impossible to build.”
Norbeck is reported to have said that he knew it was impossible,
but “put it there anyway.”

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By 1933 the Impossible Road was finished. When it was finally opened, after
constant aggravation and frustration between Norbeck and the highway department, it
proved to be so beautiful that all the bickering was forgotten. The pride of this highway
was two spiral pine-log ramps called “pigtail bridges” and the tunnels blasted through
the granite mountain. The bridges were designed to traverse mountain slopes that were
too steep for a road to climb. The tunnels were Norbeck’s idea and these tunnels were
designed to offer a view of the carvings on Mount Rushmore as you passed through
them. The carvings appeared as a picture framed by the dark tunnel. This pride and
joy created by Norbeck is seventeen miles of twisty forested ruggedness. You begin to
understand why these are called the Black Hills as you drive this road through the tall
trees and limited sunshine. In his vision to make the road a scenic route, and inadvertently creating havoc with the highway department while doing so, Norbeck carved
out a driving wonder almost as grand as the carvings on Mount Rushmore.
To the west of Iron Mountain Road, and almost parallel to it, is The Needles
Highway (SD 87). The terrain this road wanders through is similar to the road that
Norbeck built his road through. Only instead of “pigtail bridges” and tunnels to marvel at, there are towering granite spires and tunnels to marvel at.
In the beginning, Borglum considered using the Needles as the basis for his
carvings, but reconsidered when more substantial granite was found elsewhere. The
tunnels on these roads are not of the Holland Tunnel type. These tunnels are maybe
nine feet wide and twelve feet high. They are all one-lane tunnels barely a cars’ width
wide. The Ranger at the entrance to these roads weeds out the vehicles that are a little
too rotund for the tunnels, but every once in awhile something gets by and creates
quite a spectacle as it inches through the tunnel with mirrors folded in and everybody
holding their breath. We were X