The America's National Parks Podcast is sponsored by L.L. Bean.

This year, L.Bine is joining up with the National Park Foundation,

the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service to help you find your happy place in an amazing system of more than 400 national parks

including historic and cultural sites,

monuments, preserves, lakeshores, and seashores

that dot the American landscape,

many of which you'll find just a short trip from home.

L.L. Bean is proud to be an official partner of the National Park Foundation.

Discover your perfect day in a park at find your park.com. In the black hills of South Dakota, majestic figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln are said to tell the story of the

birth, growth, development, and preservation of this country.

But how much do you know about Mount Rushmore National Memorial?

I'd venture to guess that most people can name

those four presidents and can tell you where it is, but do you know the history

behind it? Even if you think you know the basics, there's a whole lot more that may knock your socks off.

Here's Abigail Trebue. So, Minnesota farmer, Don Robinson, Don Robinson, became disillusioned with the life of tending to crops and thought he tried his

hand at being a lawyer.

Needing a place to practice, he headed for the new state of South Dakota, but it was really books he loved, and a second

career change found him digging into history, eventually being appointed a job as South Dakota State historian.

He wrote about and recorded the events of the state,

as well as biographies of important people.

At the time, tourism to the Black Hills region was already booming.

An island of dark evergreen mountains in gray stone, the black hills rise out of nowhere at the edge of the vast Dakota prairie,

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