Last surviving Mount Rushmore construction worker dies at 98

Donald “Nick” Clifford, the last living person to help construct Mount Rushmore, died Saturday in Rapid City, South Dakota. He was 98.

Clifford was 17 when he was hired to work at Mount Rushmore, in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He drilled holes for dynamite and operated a winch that carried the workers who carved the faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln into the mountain, The Associated Press reports. He worked on the project from 1938 to 1940, and was paid 55 cents an hour.

During a 2016 interview, Clifford said he felt Mount Rushmore “was the greatest thing with which I was ever involved. It tells a story that will never go away — the story of how America was made and the men who helped make it what it is today.”

Last surviving Mount Rushmore construction worker dies at 98