The story
In 1939 Chief Henry Standing Bear invited Korczak Ziolkowski, who had assisted on Mount Rushmore, to carve a memorial honoring Crazy Horse and Native American heritage. The first blast on Thunderhead Mountain came June 3, 1948. Ziolkowski worked it — later with his wife Ruth and their ten children — until his death in 1982, after which Ruth led the project for decades. Korczak insisted it never take state or federal funding, a policy still honored. The face was dedicated in 1998; the full sculpture, designed to dwarf Mount Rushmore at 563 feet high, remains far from finished.
Everything that was here
- 1948–present · still open
Crazy Horse MemorialMemorial
Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear told sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes too" — and 78 years later, funded entirely by admission tickets and donations with zero government money, the mountain-sized memorial is still being carved.
See the map in 1949 →
Did you know?
Connected places
Dinosaur Park
Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox
Iron Mountain Road
Explore the full web of connections on the map.
Nearby history
Sylvan Lake
Needles Highway
Custer City
1874 French Creek Gold Discovery Site
Flintstones Bedrock City
Gordon Stockade
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