(Underwood & Underwood / Corbis) In the 1920s, despite the area’s atrocious roads, a fair number of adventurous travelers were visiting South Dakota’s Black Hills. But Doane Robinson, the official ...

In “Biography of a Mountain,” author Matthew Davis deftly weaves together interviews and stories that reveal so much more than a linear narrative of the monument’s history.

Journalist Davis (When Things Get Dark) offers a nuanced history of “our most visible piece of Americana,” the 60-foot-tall faces of four presidents carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Matthew Davis is the author of “A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore,” which will be published in November. One hundred years after its initial dedication, Mount ...