Fireworks light up the sky above Mount Rushmore National Monument on July 3, 2020, near Keystone, South Dakota. President Donald Trump spoke before the start of the fireworks display, the first at the monument in about a decade. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump will attend the first fireworks display in six years at Mount Rushmore on July 3, according to announcements Thursday morning from Freedom 250 and South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden.
The event, officially known as South Dakota’s Freedom 250 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration, in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday, will have 4,800 attendees who won tickets in an online lottery prior to the announcement of Trump’s attendance. Trump will deliver keynote remarks, according to Freedom 250, a Trump administration planning group. The Freedom 250 press release said Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum — the former governor of North Dakota — and Rhoden will also speak.
“It is my honor to welcome President Trump to the great state of South Dakota – the freest state in a nation founded on the principles of freedom,” Rhoden said in a news release.
Environmental, tribal concerns persist as fireworks bring ‘rock concert in phone booth’ to Rushmore
Trump also attended Mount Rushmore’s most recent fireworks display in 2020, after then-Gov. Kristi Noem asked him to reinstate the event. The National Park Service had ended the shows more than a decade earlier due to concerns about embers falling in the surrounding forest and sparking wildfires, plus concerns about chemicals from fireworks polluting local water sources, litter from exploded fireworks lingering on the grounds, and opposition from Native American tribes that formerly controlled the surrounding Black Hills.
During the 2020 event, a Native American-led protest on a road leading to Mount Rushmore turned into a physical clash with law enforcement, who arrested more than a dozen people. Charges were later dropped.
South Dakota’s Department of Tourism entered into a $700,000 contract in April with California-based Pyro Spectaculars to produce the fireworks show, and for “lighting elements that can be utilized if environmental conditions require an alternative to fireworks,” according to the department. The contract includes a sliding scale of partial payments if the fireworks are canceled — the later the cancellation, the higher the payment.
Trump will visit also the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, July 1 before it opens to the public July 4.
