[2] In 1969, after Interstate 80 was built, state officials moved the monument to become a centerpiece at the Summit Rest Area and Visitor Center between the cities of Cheyenne and Laramie.

[1] The construction of Lincoln's bust began more than a decade earlier and thousands of miles to the south of Sherman Hill and the Summit Rest Area.

Russin built the 4,500-pound bronze bust in Mexico during a period of 11 months using some 10 tons of clay in a lost-wax process of casting.

"The statue came up from Mexico with armed guards from the Mexican Army, because they were afraid that someone was going to steal it", said the late sculptor's son, Joe Russin, in an interview for the Laramie Boomerang.

"The grandeur of the landscape recalls the nobility of his soul," Russin wrote referencing President Abraham Lincoln.