| The
Story of the Crazy Horse Memorial Crazy Horse, SD |
||||||
| Places | Links | Books |  |
 |
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Chief Henry Standing Bear was an educator and interpreter for the Lakota. He spent most of his life working for the social progress of Native people. In 1939–while Mt. Rushmore was progressing–Standing Bear wrote to Korczak Ziolkowski, inviting the sculptor to the Black Hills to carve an Indian memorial. He wrote, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes, too." Standing Bear wrote to Korczak because he had read that the sculptor's "PADEREWSKI: Study of an Immortal" had won first prize for sculpture by popular vote at the 1939 New York World's Fair, and the news stories mentioned Korczak had worked briefly as assistant sculptor on Mt. Rushmore. Korczak eventually accepted the invitation, and arrived in the Black Hills in 1947, after volunteering to serve in the U.S. Army during World War II. He lived in a tent for the first seven months while he built a home, roads, and a 741-step staircase to the 600-foot high mountain peak. The first blast was on June 3, 1948. There have been about nine million tons of granite removed from the mountain so far. Visitors are invited to take a piece of blast rubble home. Much of the rubble is ground up and used as road gravel. Crazy Horse Monument is the world's largest art project. Korczak knew that it would take longer than his lifetime to carve, and wrote up detailed plans for its completion long before his death in 1982. The project is now managed by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a non-profit ogranization, under the direction of his wife Ruth, and others. On several occasions, Korczak was offered millions of dollars by the government to complete the momument, but he refused. Korczak's vision was to have the monument built (funded) by the interest of the public, not by government money gained through taxes. The monumental carving is only one of Korczak's three main goals for Crazy Horse Memorial. The Indian Museum of North America, already one the the region's best collections and still growing, will eventually be housed in a multi-story, hogan-style building. The third part is what will someday be a North American Indian university and medical training center. In Korczak's plan, the complex would also have an airport connected to the campus by "The Avenue of the Chiefs", a sculptural tribute to famous Native Americans. During our visit, we all hoped we would be able to come back to see Korczak's dream come true. Hopefully it won't take another 50 years! |
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
For Younger Readers |
For Older Readers |
||||||
|
|
||||||
The
Life and Death of Crazy Horse