Crazy Horse Memorial
Equipped with only a sledge hammer, a single-jack drill bit and a box of dynamite, Boston-born sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski went to work on June 3, 1948 creating his 563 by 641-foot sculpture of an Indian man atop a spirited warhorse. This would later be called Crazy Horse Memorial. He would spend the next 36 years of his life doggedly blasting away 7,400,000 tons of granite near Custer, South Dakota to rough out virtually the entire figure, in the round.
Now, 60 years after Korczak started carving, and his death in 1982, work still continues on the world’s largest sculpture. The dimensions are staggering. The mountain-sized statue is as long as a cruise ship and taller than a 60-story skyscraper!
When Korczak died in 1982, the mountain showed only a vague hint of a horse and rider. Critics reckoned that the mountain had finally outlasted the man, just as they had predicted. But Korczak had passed along his vision and passion to his wife, Ruth, and their 10 sons and daughters. He left them three plan books and scale models showing how to continue his work.
His offspring understood the importance of the project; they had worked side-by-side on the mountain with their father; and they inherited his ferocious work ethic. Ruth Ziolkowski had always been a driving force at Crazy Horse, but mainly as director of the ever-expanding visitor complex and as hostess to more than a million visitors every year. Together, the wife and children brought forth a heroic face from the granite of the Black Hills during the decade of the 90s.
The 88-foot-high face of Crazy Horse was dedicated on June 3, 1998, 50 years to the day after Korczak’s first blast.
Work now focuses on the 219-foot-high horse’s head. Blocking out the 22-story high figure has surpassed the halfway mark. There’s a lot of excitement about witnessing Crazy Horse’s steed take shape as these cliff-hanging explosive experts work their fleet of drilling equipment. Down below, a new generation of visitors watches as a new generation of workers carry the Crazy Horse dream forward.
The story of Korczak and his mountain is told in the $1.6 million Crazy Horse Orientation and Communications Center.
Buy Crazy Horse Memorial Admission
Links to Consider:
Crazy Horse Volksmarch
Custer Area Chamber of Commerce
Wind Cave National Park
Custer State Park
Great Sioux Nation
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