South Dakota's Mathis Family Murders brought death and deception to the heartland.

It was perhaps the most infamous murder case in state history. Ladonna Mathis was shot twice in the head at point-blank range inside the family's metal shed serving as their makeshift home. Two of her three children, ages 2 and 4, were also shot in the head. The brutality of the killings shocked the state and set off a frenzy of law enforcement activity. Despite its intensity, the investigation never found the murderer or the murder weapon. Though charged with the crime, the husband was acquitted, leaving the door open for endless speculation about what really occurred on that late summer morning of Sept. 8, 1981.

With renewed insight from those involved, veteran South Dakota journalist Noel Hamiel explores this cold case of murder and mystery that still haunts the Mount Rushmore state.

After 150 years, Sioux Falls continues to attract many people to the area. It was the beauty and power of the falls of the Big Sioux River that attracted early pioneers from other states in 1856 when the first town site, Sioux Falls, was organized in the Dakota Territory. Run out by Native American uprisings, these early settlers soon fled the area and did not return until 1865 when the government stepped in for protection and established Fort Dakota, a military reservation. From that early village to a city with a population of 141,000 in 2006, Sioux Falls continues to be one of the best places to live and a beautiful place to visit.

Think about the most romantically notorious Wild West town you ever heard of, and most likely Deadwood would head the list. Deadwood has more than its share of legends, heroes, and brigands who traveled through or made their homes here: Wild Bill and Calamity Jane to be sure, but also Buffalo Bill, Wyatt Earp, Captain Jack Crawford (the "Poet Scout"), California Joe, Seth Bullock, Poker Alice, and many more. No other frontier town--not Dodge City, Tombstone, Abilene, or Cripple Creek--could claim them all. Deadwood is the champion, and was the happening place in the late 1870s. This legacy lives on today as casino gambling--perhaps ironically but fittingly--financed the preservation of historic downtown Deadwood begining in 1989, an area that is now designated a National Historic Landmark.

Pandemonium wafted up out of Deadwood Gulch whenever bellowing, muddy oxen teams led wagons rattling into town. For a decade, thousands of bull trains hauled all that miners, settlers and ne'er-do-wells needed to survive in that isolated prairie oasis. The bulls, thousands of them in mile-long, meandering trains, had last known civilization in Fort Pierre, two hundred miles to the east. After weeks on the harsh prairie of the Sioux, the exhausted convoys appeared out of the prairie dust, each team of twenty or more oxen pulling sturdy, white-bonneted wagons filled with provisions. Author Chuck Cecil restores the glory of the near-forgotten yet indispensable symbols of the West that made life possible on the frontier's western fringe.

In the heart of a geological upthrust, four presidents, memorialized in granite, gaze across the rugged country of South Dakota's Black Hills. At the foot of the mountain lies Keystone, a small community indelibly linked to the carving of Mount Rushmore. In 1876, prospectors swarmed into the central Black Hills in search of gold. While they did find it, these early miners also found other minerals, such as tin and feldspar. By the turn of the 20th century, Keystone was well-known for its mineral riches, but also for the boom and bust cycles that often accompany mining. The town's future was guaranteed in 1925, however, when Gutzon Borglum, a noted sculptor, arrived to secure a location for a monument to American democracy. Borglum drew heavily on the skills of Keystone miners, putting them to work on a mountain that would soon portray the images of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. In this book, readers will find vintage photographs--many never before published--that, along with engaging narrative, tell the story of Keystone and the carving of Mount Rushmore.