“Moon Handbooks: Mount Rushmore & the Black Hills: Including the Badlands” ($16.95, Avalon)
Mount Rushmore is one of the more popular destinations in the United States, but as this first edition makes clear, there is plenty more to do besides seeing the presidential faces sculpted into the rock, as impressive as that might be. Some sites are little-known outside the area, such as the Prairie Berry Winery a few miles from Hill City, S.D., which uses grapes, honey, raspberries, rhubarb, chokeberries, cranberries, plums and crab apples as its unusual ingredients. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane put Deadwood on the tourist map, and to this day it remains “one of the edgiest and dynamic towns in the hills,” says author Laural A. Bidwell. Being designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 wasn’t enough to entirely tame its wilder elements: Its last four brothels didn’t close until 1980, she notes, and gambling was legalized in 1989. But no part of the area is as eerie and beautiful as the Badlands. Bidwell devotes an entire chapter to Badlands National Park and the surrounding area, including the Pine Ridge Reservation, site of the Wounded Knee Memorial. A small stone commemorates the Lakota people who were killed there by members of the 7th Cavalry in late December 1890. Chicago Tribune
