Travel Secrets by V

Crazy Horse memorial will eventually be the biggest sculpture on earth at eighty-seven feet high. Located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, it will someday have a body and a horse. When it does, it will become the largest sculpture on earth. Surprisingly, it was all started by one man who carved the mountain alone for many years. At the rate it’s being sculpted, sadly we probably won’t ever get to see it finished in our lifetime.  Ultimately Crazy Horse will be 563 feet high and  641 feet long. Also the site will house a university, a medical center, a museum and a cultural center. Even though it’s not complete, it’s still a fun sit to visit.

A proposition from Standing Bear

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski worked with Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore for a summer. Later that year he received a letter from Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear. He was asked to carve the face of the most famous Lakota Indian, Crazy Horse, into the Black Hills. Chief Standing Bear told Korczak “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes also,” This touched Korczak deeply as he had always been a storyteller and what better way to tell a story than with a giant sculpture.

Which turned into a bigger than life goal

However, Korczak wanted to build a carving that would tell a story so instead of carving a head he decided to carve the entire mountain. His plan was to carve Crazy Horse on top of his horse, pointing out at the land. The image is about a moment in the past when a soldier asked Crazy horse where his land was. Crazy Horse replied “My land is where my dead lie buried” This is the phrase that sparked the flame in Korczak and drove him to carve the mountain into this Lakota hero.

A lot of Persistence and Determination

Korczak started carving the mountain all by himself. When he finally arrived on site, it was winter. As he lived in a tent, he started building himself a house out of wood. When he was finished, two years later he started his work on the mountain. Overall his first yearly budget was only $147. Eventually he installed ropes to the top of the mountain. And every day that summer, he climbed those ropes to the top carrying tools and dynamite for the first blast. It took place on June 3rd 1948. During that winter he built himself a 741 step staircase to the top of the mountain. When the weather finally warmed up, he climbed that ladder every day carrying his tools and dynamite. As time passd he fathered ten kids who started helping him at a very young age.

He refused government funding twice

Korczak goal was to build a site that would help protect and preserve the culture, tradition and living heritage of the North American Indians by building a university for them on the same site as Crazy Horse Memorial. With this in mind, he refused 10 million dollars in government funds to help build the project not once but twice!

His Dream lives on

Until the day he died, Korczak carved that mountain. His children and grandchildren now carry on his dream. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing when this project will ever be finished. Since it’s all financed through the entry fee and donations. However there is a lot of controversy about where the money actually ends up. Ruth, Korczaks wife who started the foundation when Korczak passed away, collected $159,000 annually for her personal salary from these donations until the day she died. Even though the park collects millions in donations every year, not a whole lot of the donations are being invested in the actual sculpture.

Who was Crazy Horse?

Crazy Horse is best known for leading the battle that killed General Custer known as Custer’s last stand. Unfortunately, he was allegedly killed by a soldier during a struggle as he was surrendering at Fort Robinson. During his surrender, Crazy Horse realized that he was going to be imprisoned so he tried to escape. In short, Little big Man from a rival tribe didn’t let him escape and Crazy Horse was stabbed in the back with a soldiers bayonet.

Contradicting stories about his death

For one thing, history says a soldier stabbed him in the back but Little Big Man says it’s a completely different story. Apparently Crazy Horse pulled two knives and one of them was made from a soldiers bayonet. When Little Big Man held both of Crazy Horses elbows behind his back, he struggled to get free and one elbow slipped. As it slipped, Crazy Horse stabbed himself in the back. Apparently the camp commander, made up the story about the soldier stabbing him instead because he did not want any inter-clan reprisals. If Crazy Horse was killed by a soldier, the soldiers name isn’t recorded anywhere. Therefore there may be some controversy about who actually killed him.

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