After Mount Rushmore we headed to Custer to check into our hotel for a couple of days. On the way we saw the Crazy Horse monument so we decided what the heck we are here. This structure has a pretty impressive history. As the wikipedia article suggests this has been under construction since 1948 and has no end date in site. It will not be completed in my lifetime , and likely not even my kids lifetime. The pointing fingers were projected to be finished in 2025.
This structure unlike Mount Rushmore is privately funded. This would explain the $10.00 per person entry fee. What history we also learned was that it was started by one man Korczak Ziolkowski. He had 5 sons who on various occasions helped him. Today there are 10 people working on it , including one of Korczak's sons. Of the 10 people working on there today 9 of them have been there more than 20 years - so for the last 20 years these guys go to 'office' and blast and carve away.
Another tidbit was apparently there were no photographs of Crazy Horse so a group of people that knew him got together with an artist to reconstruct a likeness from memory.
A little history stolen from Wikipedia :
The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument complex that is under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota. It depicts Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a private non-profit organization.
The memorial consists of the mountain carving (monument), the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural Center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet (27 m) high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet (18 m) high.
Click on image twice for larger view
The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is far from completion.[1] If completed, it may become the world's largest sculpture, as well as the first non-religious statue to hold this record since 1967 (when it was held by the Soviet monument The Motherland Calls.[2])
#1 - Our $20.00 and this is a close as we could get. It did grant us access to the Museum and some of the films , however we were here to see the face.
#2 - so for another $4,00 a person we took the bus which at least allowed us to see more than the profile. The white chalk line you see is the horses head. Once completed this will be one impressive structure
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#5 - the detail is impressive
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#7 - This shot looks like the lobotomy is not quite finished
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