Beyond Mount Rushmore: Other Black Hills Faces

Millions of visitors view the four famous faces of Mount Rushmore each year, but the Black Hills are home to more than just the presidents in Gutzon Borglums carved memorial. A wide variety of people have made their home in the Black Hills region over the past one hundred and thirty-five years. The essays in Beyond Mount Rushmore introduce the lives, hopes, dreams, and realities of ten other faces. Authors cover the gamut of Black Hills life, from the gold rush of the mid-1870s all the way through to the search for log-cabin isolation in the late-twentieth century. Famous musicians, Deadwoods small Chinese population, an influential manager of the Homestake Mine, a Civilian Conservation Corps worker, a moral crusader, the first African American woman to settle in the Hills, and Alfred Hitchcock provide the cast of characters in this literary monument to Black Hills men and women.  Editor Mary A. Kopco selected each essay from the pages of South Dakota History, the quarterly journal of the South Dakota State Historical Society, offering readers insight into the private and public lives of these fascinating Black Hills residents. Kopcos introduction provides the context for each face in terms of the general history of the region, weaving the common and uncommon threads that bind the years, themes, and personalities together.

Contributors: Thomas R. Buecker; Donald W. Bolin; Todd David Epp; Rose Estep Fosha; Eileen French; Todd Guenther; George A. Larson; James D. McLaird; Rex C. Myers; Denise Karst Pearce; Susan L. Richards; Maxwell Van Nuys; Edith C. Wong. See more