A Tribute to Crazy Horse

Having already told you about our adventures out in the Bad Lands of South Dakota I will go to the next adventure out of Rapid City, Crazy Horse. In case you don’t know, the Crazy Horse Memorial is a privately funded sculpture in the Black Hills near Rapid City paying tribute to all of the indigenous people of the area. It was decided by Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and Lokota Chief Henry Standing Bear to sculpt a statue of Chief Crazy Horse sitting on his pony pointing over the great plains that his people once proudly lived on.

The primary method to sculpt the mountain was to blast the stone away and the first blast was set off on June 3, 1948. It is thought that this first blast removed about 10 tons of stone! I can not imagine the skill of any person to even think that it would be possible to carve a statue from an entire mountain.

The sculptor and his wife realized that the project was going to take more than 100 years to complete so it was important that his intentions were carried out after he was no longer here. To assure this, they drew out three large books containing explicit directions to insure the completion of this project. Today the site is managed and operated by several Ziolkowski children and is still totally privately funded.

I could write more about this memorial but words can not convey the enormity of this project and I would encourage anyone reading this to put it on your bucket list. I have been here three times and still find it so inspiring. The picture above is the closest one can usually get to the project however on two special days each year people can go all the way to the face, I will have to work on getting there on one of those days. Knowing thatI will never see this completed maybe one of my ancestors will go to the mountain once it is.

If you find this interesting leave us a comment and feel free to tell your friends about it.