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The last time Nick Clifford drove to work on Mount Rushmore National Memorial in 1940, a quarter bought more than $4 in today's money.

Now a quarter can't buy a pack of gum in a Custer convenience store.

Never mind that. What's important with today's quarter is that Mount Rushmore is back on it.

And Clifford, the last living worker on the monument, celebrated the newest coin Wednesday morning at the National Guard Armory in Custer.

With the pomp of a graduation ceremony, officials from the U.S. Mint and Mount Rushmore stood before Custer and Hot Springs students and unveiled the new quarter. The children in attendance were each given a quarter after the ceremony, and members of the public were able to buy $10 rolls and commemorative sets.

The new coin is part of the mint's "America the Beautiful Quarters" program, which celebrates one national site in each state.

South Dakota is the last of five 2013 dated quarters to be unveiled this year, coming after Fort McHenry National Monument in Maryland, Great Basin National Park in Nevada, Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial in Ohio and White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire.

The Mount Rushmore quarter harkens back to the monument's construction, featuring scaffolding and a worker hanging from a harness underneath Thomas Jefferson.

"I really think it's kind of cool that they put the carvers in there," said Marsha Leininger, who bought a couple of $10 rolls after the ceremony.

Clifford, 92, worked on the memorial between 1938 and 1940. After the ceremony, he signed rolls of quarters bought by members of the public and posed with people for photos, including one with Rapid City Mayor Sam Kooiker.

The last time the four carved presidents graced a quarter was in 2006, when each state quarter featured a unique design for the reverse, or tails, side. That one featured a portrait shot of Mount Rushmore, along with grains of wheat and a Chinese ring-necked pheasant, which was imported here in 1898.

In 1991, two coins in a three-coin commemorative edition featured Mount Rushmore, according to Michael White, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint. That uncirculated edition featured the monument on a silver dollar and a half dollar. The third, a $5 gold coin, featured an eagle.

To read the complete article, see: The stone face of Mount Rushmore featured on the latest quarter (rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/the-stone-face-of-mount-rushmore
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Phil Iversen was the only reader to reply on this topic. He writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: THE MOUNT RUSHMORE FIVE-OUNCE SILVER COIN (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v16n45a12.html)