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HistoryExtra podcast

The hidden history behind Mount Rushmore

HistoryExtra podcast

HistoryExtra

History

4.34.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mount Rushmore is one of the most iconic images in US history – but its story is far more complex and controversial than that of a simple sculpture. In this episode, historian Matthew Davis joins Elinor Evans to discuss his latest book, A Biography of a Mountain, which delves into the layers of myth and meaning behind the granite. Davis explains how the Black Hills – sacred to the Lakota Nation – were seized in violation of treaties, and how sculptor Gutzon Borglum, a man with ties to the Ku Klux Klan, came to carve the faces of four presidents on to a mountainside. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

My name is Sherlock Holmes.

0:02.0

It's an unusual name.

0:03.0

Introducing Young Sherlock, a new Guy Ritchie series.

0:07.0

What game are we playing today?

0:09.0

Discover the origins.

0:10.0

It's cleaving. Those days are surely behind me.

0:12.0

Of crime's most iconic mind.

0:14.0

There has been a break-in.

0:17.0

Astoned. You should be a detective.

0:19.0

Starring Hero finds Tiffin, Donald Finn and Colin Firth.

0:22.5

If you start wearing a hat like that, I will no longer be friends with you.

0:25.9

Young Sherlock, new original series. Watch now only on Prime Video.

0:35.2

How did four US presidents, Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt,

0:42.4

come to be carved on the side of a mountain in South Dakota? Why were their faces chosen? And by whom?

0:49.4

In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Matthew Davis traces how a mountainside in the Black Hills,

0:56.1

on land vital to the origin stories of the Lakota Nation, came to be a granite canvas for a colossal

1:02.4

sculpture at Mount Rushmore. Talking to Eleanor Evans, he explores the story of the monument and its

1:09.1

creation that illuminates the question about whose version of history ends up carved in stone.

1:15.8

Matthew, thank you so much for joining us on today's History Extra podcast. How are you doing today?

1:19.7

I am doing great. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

1:22.5

It's a real pleasure. And we're talking about somewhere that I'm sure a lot of people will have seen images of.

1:27.7

We have a lot of American listeners, so they will probably be aware of this memorial.

...

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