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.

(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 ...

Set in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore may be one of the United States’ most recognizable landmarks, but as author Matthew Davis explains in “A Biography of a Mountain – The Making and ...

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.

When I was driving cross-country about 20 years ago, I stopped at the Black Hills of South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. It's quite a sight - the heads of four U.S. presidents, each about 60 feet tall ...