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The fifth and final commemorative quarter-dollar coin released in 2006 honors South Dakota, the "Mount Rushmore State," and is the 40th coin in the United States Mint's 50 State Quarters® Program. Admitted into the Union on November 2, 1889, South Dakota became the Nation's 40th state. The release of this quarter signals the end of the eighth year of the 50 State Quarters Program.
The South Dakota quarter features an image of the State bird, a Chinese ring-necked pheasant, in flight above a depiction of the Mount Rushmore National Monument, featuring the faces of four American Presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The design is bordered by heads of wheat. The coin's design also bears the inscriptions "South Dakota" and "1889."
Sculptor Gutzon Borglum began drilling into Mount Rushmore, the 5,725-foot peak rising above Harney National Forest, in 1927. Creation of the "Shrine of Democracy" took 14 years and cost approximately $1 million, though it is now deemed priceless.