“I want to show my father as he was,” Mackay said, “a workman in the mines out of which his wealth and his position in life came.” Because of this the model showed the capitalist in the dress of a miner--top boots, loose shirt open at the throat and shapeless working trousers. The left hand was grasping a pick handle against which the body leaned. The right hand was upturned, holding a piece of quartz. Clarence Mackay liked it. When it was done he asked Gutzon to take it to Nevada and find a place to put it. “It is very difficult work to make a statue,” he said. “I think it is more difficult to find the right spot to display it. And I think the man who is qualified for one job is best qualified for the other.” Thus began a new and complicated adventure. Gutzon met Sam Davis and went to Carson City, Nevada, carrying letters of introduction to state officials. There they met Governor Sparks, who looked interested but extremely puzzled. Carson City was without parks, city squares or, for that matter, any cultivated landscape. The governor scratched his head and said, “Doesn’t seem to be much place where you could put a statue around here ... unless you want to stick it out in the middle of the street.” The local organizations--patriotic, political, business, social--all had something of the governor’s attitude but were guided, in public action, by good old Western individualism. Each one suggested where Gutzon could put his statue, but no two could reach an agreement. The sculptor labored with them for several weeks and got very annoyed. He began to think that there was no reason for locating the work in Carson City. The right place for it, he [Illustration: STONE MOUNTAIN] [Illustration: WORKING PLATFORM NEAR SUMMIT OF STONE MOUNTAIN] [Illustration: MODEL OF STONE MOUNTAIN GROUP This was the model which Borglum destroyed.] thought, was Virginia City, where Mackay had operated. But Virginia City was in worse shape than Carson. He came one night to the home of Sam Davis, after a weary day with a government committee, and asked if he would object to communicating with Mr. Mackay about where to put his father’s statue. Sam burst into laughter. “You’re growing up,” he said. “Go as far as you please.” Gutzon picked up the telephone and called Joseph Stubbs, president of the University of Nevada at Reno. He never could explain why he picked President Stubbs except that he had met him and found him to be just the sort of man to develop a university in that sort of town. At any rate, he called and asked, “Would it interest you to have a statue of John W. Mackay on the campus of your university?” And Stubbs said, “Certainly ... or is this a joke?”