About 17 miles from Mount Rushmore is the Crazy Horse Memorial. It claims to be the World’s Largest Mountain Carving. When (if) finished Crazy Horse will stand 641 feet long and 563 high. Currently, the face is finished and what will be his arm is roughed out. The native American Education and Cultural Center is large and includes a 20 minute film about Crazy Horse and the sculptor, Koraczak Ziolkowski.
Ziolkowski caught the attention of Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear after Korczak’s sculpture won first prize at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Standing Bear wrote to Korczak, “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes, also” and invited him to create something in honor of all native Americans.
The project doesn’t get any federal funding. The entry fee is $10 per person or $27 per car. Since Ziolkowski’s death in 1982, seven of his ten children and widow have taken over the project. While we were there we witnessed a ten ton blast carving away a small part under what will be the horses eye. Visually it wasn’t very stunning but the sound was quite loud. I suspect it will never be finished. A model of what it would look like if ever done is on view in the educational and cultural center, which is quite extensive.
Crazy Horse defended his people and their way of life. He died at a fairly young age (they guess he was 35) after getting stabbed in the back by an American soldier in 1877. The white man signed a treaty (signed by the President of the United States) “giving” the Sioux Indians the Black Hills. The US subsequently broke it once gold was found and the rest, as they say, is history. It’s pretty obvious that this is white man land.