November 17, 2025 • 6 mins
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Matthew Davis - A Biography of a Mountain https://amzn.to/3LPzM3L
Matthew Davis - A Biography of a Mountain https://amzn.to/3LPzM3L
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Something you should go Something you should know is brought
to you by Genesis gooldira dot com. That's also something
you should know. You can put your retirement plan. I'm
the gold standard. Learn more and get a free gold
and Silver guide at Genesis goold ir dot com. Excited
to have a guest joining me on the telephone right now,
best selling author Matthew Davis joining us for the one
hundredth anniversary of Mount Rushmore. He's got a new book out.
(00:23):
It's called A Biography of a Mountain, The Making and
Meaning of Mount Rushmore. Now we are in the Mount
Rushmore State here, and there are people and I will
tell you that love this, and there are people who
don't love this. But let's talk about you and how
in the world did you come to make a book
about Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. First of all,
it's great to be talking with someone from South Dakota.
The book sort of originated on July third, twenty twenty,
when President Trump spoke at Mount Rushmore for Independence Day
and there were fireworks that were displayed there and President
Trump gave a speech about American history and the memorials
and monuments meant to commemorate that. But at the time
(01:00):
I didn't watch it live, but I was reading about it,
and I began to wonder, you know, why he gave
that kind of speech at Mount Rushmore, And so I
did sort of a deep dive into the history of
the memorial, why it was in the Black Hills, who
created it, sort of the controversies around where it is placed.
And so I really decided that there was a lot
of material here that I can work with for a book.
(01:23):
And in particular what interested me was that, you know,
the memorial and where it is sort of brushes against
so many of our American myths, whether it's our westward expansion,
our relationship with Native Indigenous communities, our search for gold,
our creativity, these words like democracy and freedom and liberty
that means so much to us as Americans. They all
(01:45):
kind of come together at Mount Rushmore in a way
that allowed me to explore American history through this memorial.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Again, the book is out right now. It's called a
Biography of a Mountain, The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore.
As you were doing some research, but you found quite
a bit of information about this mountain, didn't you.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, So the Black Hills which I'm sure you've been to. Absolutely,
they're just beautiful, they're stunning. The area around there is
wonderful to hike in, to drive around in, but it's
got a very fraught history. And that history goes back,
for the purposes of this book, to the eighteen sixty
eighth Treaty of Fort Laramie that was signed between the
(02:22):
United States and the Lakota Nation. And in that treaty,
the US gave to Lakota a lot of land, part
of which is the entire western half of South Dakota,
which of course included the Black Hills, which of course
is where Mount Rushmore is today. And no sooner was
that treaty signed than in eighteen seventy four, George Armstrong
Custer was leading a military expedition through the Black Hills
(02:44):
and his party discovered gold. And what that meant was that,
you know, many people who have been clamoring to get
into the Black Hills now had a reason to really
clamor to get us the Black Hills to go search
for that gold. And the president at the time was
Ulysses S. Grant, and he had done a good job
of preventing people from entering the Black Hills, which according
to the treaty, there could be no Americans in the
(03:06):
Black Hills. But at that point Ulysses s. Grant relented
let miners into the hills and told Native Americans that
they needed to go to federal run reservations otherwise they
would be quote unquote rounded up. And as part of
that rounding up, George Armstrong Custer led his seventh Cavalry
out west and he engaged with the Lakota and Northern
(03:28):
Cheyenne at the Battle of Little Bighorn in eighteen seventy six.
Of course, Custer was defeated, he himself was killed, and
when word got back east that this had happened, the
United States became enraged and they wanted to seize the
Black Hills, which they did in eighteen seventy seven. So
that's the historical context with the land, and many Native Americans,
many people belonging to the Lakota tribe, who value the
(03:51):
Black Hills, who still call it home, see Mount Rushmore
as a representative of a painful history that has not
really been resolved.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It is the one hundredth anniversary of Mount Rushmore. And
again this new book, a biography of Amount and the
making and meaning of Mount Rushmore is out right now.
And the thing is nice. There are two sides of this.
You know, there are people who again huge fans, people
also who are not huge fans. The nice thing about
this book is they can read this and maybe learn
a little more about the other side, to find out
what people like about it and to find out what
other people don't like about it.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I think that's exactly right. Yeah, And you know, my
view in this book is that I really think it's
important as Americans or as any you knows of any
country to be able to feel patriotic and feel pride
in your country, and there should be sites through where
we can do so. But one of the things that
I sort of interrogate in this book is whether you
know a place like Mount Rushmore is a good place
(04:43):
to sort of have those kinds of feelings because of
the complicated history of it. And I think the more
that we can sort of complicate history, understand it, tell
the full story, the better off that we are as
a country, the stronger we are as a country. And
Mount Rushmore throughout its history throughout one hundred years, has
done an job of telling the history. I mean, I
think really only in two thousand and four when there
(05:04):
was a Native American superintendent that ran Mount Rushmore, a
man named Gerard Baker. He introduced a lot of different
Native American elements to the memorial. He started a Lakota
Heritage Village. He hired Native American interpreters to tell the
stories of their tribes. He included cultural performances from Native Americans.
So she began to open the lens water to tell
(05:26):
Broder stories and that continues to this day. And I
think that's an important element to the story. I think
it's important for people, for Americans, for foreigners to be
able to understand and get the full grasp of the
history of the Black Hills.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I love that. So if you're there to see the monument,
you can learn a little more about everything else as well.
What a great idea, and again a great idea to
put out a book right now the one hundredth anniversary.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with us
about your book.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Today, John, Thank you so much. Look forward to seeing
you perhaps in South Dakota.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That would be awesome. Again, the new book is out
right now. The guests that we've been chatting with Matthew
Davis his book A Biography a Mountain, The Making and
Meaning of Mount Rushmore. I've got a link to it
at Facebook dot com slash Sunny Radio and Facebook dot
com slash Suit Falls News.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And Something You Should Know.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Something you Should Know is brought to you by GENESISGOLDIRA
dot com. Put your retirement plan on the gold standard.
Get a free gold and Silver guide now at genesisgoldra
dot com
Something you should go Something you should know is brought
to you by Genesis gooldira dot com. That's also something
you should know. You can put your retirement plan. I'm
the gold standard. Learn more and get a free gold
and Silver guide at Genesis goold ir dot com. Excited
to have a guest joining me on the telephone right now,
best selling author Matthew Davis joining us for the one
hundredth anniversary of Mount Rushmore. He's got a new book out.
(00:23):
It's called A Biography of a Mountain, The Making and
Meaning of Mount Rushmore. Now we are in the Mount
Rushmore State here, and there are people and I will
tell you that love this, and there are people who
don't love this. But let's talk about you and how
in the world did you come to make a book
about Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. First of all,
it's great to be talking with someone from South Dakota.
The book sort of originated on July third, twenty twenty,
when President Trump spoke at Mount Rushmore for Independence Day
and there were fireworks that were displayed there and President
Trump gave a speech about American history and the memorials
and monuments meant to commemorate that. But at the time
(01:00):
I didn't watch it live, but I was reading about it,
and I began to wonder, you know, why he gave
that kind of speech at Mount Rushmore, And so I
did sort of a deep dive into the history of
the memorial, why it was in the Black Hills, who
created it, sort of the controversies around where it is placed.
And so I really decided that there was a lot
of material here that I can work with for a book.
(01:23):
And in particular what interested me was that, you know,
the memorial and where it is sort of brushes against
so many of our American myths, whether it's our westward expansion,
our relationship with Native Indigenous communities, our search for gold,
our creativity, these words like democracy and freedom and liberty
that means so much to us as Americans. They all
(01:45):
kind of come together at Mount Rushmore in a way
that allowed me to explore American history through this memorial.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Again, the book is out right now. It's called a
Biography of a Mountain, The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore.
As you were doing some research, but you found quite
a bit of information about this mountain, didn't you.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, So the Black Hills which I'm sure you've been to. Absolutely,
they're just beautiful, they're stunning. The area around there is
wonderful to hike in, to drive around in, but it's
got a very fraught history. And that history goes back,
for the purposes of this book, to the eighteen sixty
eighth Treaty of Fort Laramie that was signed between the
(02:22):
United States and the Lakota Nation. And in that treaty,
the US gave to Lakota a lot of land, part
of which is the entire western half of South Dakota,
which of course included the Black Hills, which of course
is where Mount Rushmore is today. And no sooner was
that treaty signed than in eighteen seventy four, George Armstrong
Custer was leading a military expedition through the Black Hills
(02:44):
and his party discovered gold. And what that meant was that,
you know, many people who have been clamoring to get
into the Black Hills now had a reason to really
clamor to get us the Black Hills to go search
for that gold. And the president at the time was
Ulysses S. Grant, and he had done a good job
of preventing people from entering the Black Hills, which according
to the treaty, there could be no Americans in the
(03:06):
Black Hills. But at that point Ulysses s. Grant relented
let miners into the hills and told Native Americans that
they needed to go to federal run reservations otherwise they
would be quote unquote rounded up. And as part of
that rounding up, George Armstrong Custer led his seventh Cavalry
out west and he engaged with the Lakota and Northern
(03:28):
Cheyenne at the Battle of Little Bighorn in eighteen seventy six.
Of course, Custer was defeated, he himself was killed, and
when word got back east that this had happened, the
United States became enraged and they wanted to seize the
Black Hills, which they did in eighteen seventy seven. So
that's the historical context with the land, and many Native Americans,
many people belonging to the Lakota tribe, who value the
(03:51):
Black Hills, who still call it home, see Mount Rushmore
as a representative of a painful history that has not
really been resolved.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It is the one hundredth anniversary of Mount Rushmore. And
again this new book, a biography of Amount and the
making and meaning of Mount Rushmore is out right now.
And the thing is nice. There are two sides of this.
You know, there are people who again huge fans, people
also who are not huge fans. The nice thing about
this book is they can read this and maybe learn
a little more about the other side, to find out
what people like about it and to find out what
other people don't like about it.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I think that's exactly right. Yeah, And you know, my
view in this book is that I really think it's
important as Americans or as any you knows of any
country to be able to feel patriotic and feel pride
in your country, and there should be sites through where
we can do so. But one of the things that
I sort of interrogate in this book is whether you
know a place like Mount Rushmore is a good place
(04:43):
to sort of have those kinds of feelings because of
the complicated history of it. And I think the more
that we can sort of complicate history, understand it, tell
the full story, the better off that we are as
a country, the stronger we are as a country. And
Mount Rushmore throughout its history throughout one hundred years, has
done an job of telling the history. I mean, I
think really only in two thousand and four when there
(05:04):
was a Native American superintendent that ran Mount Rushmore, a
man named Gerard Baker. He introduced a lot of different
Native American elements to the memorial. He started a Lakota
Heritage Village. He hired Native American interpreters to tell the
stories of their tribes. He included cultural performances from Native Americans.
So she began to open the lens water to tell
(05:26):
Broder stories and that continues to this day. And I
think that's an important element to the story. I think
it's important for people, for Americans, for foreigners to be
able to understand and get the full grasp of the
history of the Black Hills.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I love that. So if you're there to see the monument,
you can learn a little more about everything else as well.
What a great idea, and again a great idea to
put out a book right now the one hundredth anniversary.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with us
about your book.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Today, John, Thank you so much. Look forward to seeing
you perhaps in South Dakota.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That would be awesome. Again, the new book is out
right now. The guests that we've been chatting with Matthew
Davis his book A Biography a Mountain, The Making and
Meaning of Mount Rushmore. I've got a link to it
at Facebook dot com slash Sunny Radio and Facebook dot
com slash Suit Falls News.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And Something You Should Know.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Something you Should Know is brought to you by GENESISGOLDIRA
dot com. Put your retirement plan on the gold standard.
Get a free gold and Silver guide now at genesisgoldra
dot com
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