When I was 11 years old, my family and I went to Mount Rushmore on vacation. My father had heard about Korczak and his Crazy Horse Monument and took us to see it. When we met Korczk, he took us on a tour of his home and studio that faced the mountain. He rolled out a completed alabaster sculpture of his vision for the Crazy Horse Monument. The sculpture was rolled out on rails like you’d see in a mine. The outstretched hand of the sculpture pointed directly to the mountain. It was beautiful and impressive. When we met him, he’d already been blasting away at it for 17 years and only managed to create an L-shape in the side of the mountain. Today, that would be the face and the top of the arm. Even as an 11 yr. old, I realized he wouldn’t live long enough to see its completion. So I asked him who would finish it and he told me he had 10 children! Now, 60 years later, I’m thinking I won’t live long enough to see its completion! But I never forgot meeting him, his beautiful sculpture and his vision. That was a great vacation trip.
I was there in 77. We asked if he was there and were informed that he doesn't greet the public any longer. The white sculptured model of it was on the deck of I beleive was the visitor center, and was posed in the same direction as the one on the mountain, so you could stand behind the model and line it up with the the one on the mountain. I remember the driveway was lined with some of his world acclaimed sculpted busts and all their noses were broken off by a hammer wielding drunken son in law. While returning to our car in the lot, a flatbed semi was being backed into the woods next to us. A large old man with long hair and a long beard was hollering at the young man driving the truck that if he couldn't listen and do a better job driving that he would do it himself, quite a spectacle. My soon to be wife mlm looked at me excitedly and said...it's him! and it was.
Medieval cathedrals were often constructed over multiple generations. The master masons who designed them often never lived to see their completion. Projects such as these have been rarely seen since. Our technological progress makes it easy to fit our ambitions into a single life. We lack the patience to try for anything loftier. And worse, we grow accustomed to it. Economic incentives limit our outlook to the next quarter. Looming crises are dismissed as problems for the next generation. We loose the far sighted perspective that men once had. But were we to recover that perspective, what great things we could accomplish, for ourselves and the world.
WOW! You can see the hand now. The detail is incredible! The thumb nail and fingernails... Such a majestic place. So glad they carved this monument honoring Crazy Horse and are still working on it. Can’t wait to see it in person
The detail and dedication is very impressive. It’s coming together just as Korczak and Standing Bear’s vision foretold. This is a living masterpiece. RIP Ruth K & Casimir
I'll be dad,for the 1st time, in 2 months.Hope one day I'll be there to visit that masterpiece with my daughter.Can't wait❤. All the best from all those who are working there at the moment. Greetings from Italy .
I was working for Phillips66 Oil Co. in Rapid City SD in 1974 and Korczak Ziolkowski was using our fuel and lubricants in all his equipment . I spent a day with him on the mountain and the evening at his home. He drove me all over the area in his jeep and we drank whiskey in his living room. His wife Ruth brought it to us straight, in water glass tumblers!! (after a day with no meals....ugh!) He was a wonderful guy, full of enthusiasm and loving life and his gigantic project. He knew that he would not live to finish the sculpture , and he said so. He hoped that his family and foundation would complete it someday. However, nearby Rapid City is the location of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology , one of the premier hard rock mining engineering schools in the nation. I studied Civil Engineering there in the years following my visits with Korczak, and expert geophysical scientists and mining engineers at the school had determined that the Crazy Horse sculpture could never be completed because the rock the mountain is comprised of is not monolithic or uniform and could never support the type of sculpture that Ziolkowski envisioned. I can clearly see that coming true in this video made 50 years after I stood on the top of the mountain with Korczak. There's been very little change or progress in 50 years, and what has been done bears only a passing resemblance to the models and drawings Ziolkowski made originally. Too bad - His was a magnificent vision , but the raw material just was not then, and never will be there to make it real.
I remember seeing a show titled They Said it Couldn't be Done back in the early 70's when this guy was just starting the project. Impressive how it has progressed since then.
Wikipedia: Crazy Horse (c. 1840 - September 5, 1877) was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by white American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866, in which he acted as a decoy, and the *Battle of the Little Bighorn* in 1876, in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people. In September 1877, four months after surrendering to U.S. troops under General George Crook, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a bayonet-wielding military guard while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1982 with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
My dad took our family to see Crazy Horse in the 1960's when Mr. Korczak was alive. The drive up the drive lined with his sculptures. they progress is amazing. I love that no government money is being used to build this tribute! I have been there several times, but the last time was 2007. Ready to go in person again.
My grandparents all lived in South Dakota, from the 30s to the early 2000s (they live long up there), and my paternal GPS lived in Spearfish and Rapid, and I grew up going to the area including the Crazy Horse memorial. I’m amazed, now in my 60s, how it’s come along but still has so far to go. It’s a difficult thing to carve out a mountainside of rock, but it’s looking great.
Wife and I saw it in July of 73, while visiting Mt Rushmore and the Black Hills. Impressive vision - Doubt if it will be done in my lifetime, as I am 80 now.
I was there in the early 90's marveling at the magnificence of this undertaking...warms my Heart that it's being taken ( albeit in baby steps ) to the next level !
Judging by the progress vs time... I would say about 80~90 years maybe sooner if techniques and all out funding happen. This will be the worlds largest carving in stone.
Very glad to see that it's still being worked on. Was worried that after the driver for the monument passed that the project would too. It will be wonderful when complete.
It would be very cool if there was an inside look at the Architectural/Civil engineering on this mountain. The careful process on how it’s done, and modeling a very nice video.
Crazy Horse did not want to be photographed while he lived (and wasn't, so we actually don't even know what he looked like for sure) so I kind of doubt he'd want an image in his name be the reason for the carving up of a mountain on sacred Lakota land.
I said it before and I'll say it again: This project will trundle on for another century and be milked by the powers that run it and by their children and their children's children. It will never finish. Countless sums will be spent by credulous sight-seers and fill the coffers of somebody or something. I'd like to see the retrospective that is published when the whole effort is quietly shut-down and everybody leaves and the Crazy Horse is eventually covered with any foliage that can take root in the little pockets of soil that will, eventually, collect in the hollows.
Exactly. We were there in 2017, and got the distinct impression that their main goal was collecting the admission fees rather than the completion of the project.
Most people don't realize that the origional builder said the government will never have their hands in this creation. The government took their land but not their dignity.
I have visited that place, but didn't get close to the actual sculpture. I figure that at the rate they're progressing on it, they'll have it completed in another 200-300 years.
The estimated time frames for building Egyptian Pyramids is 15 to 30 years!!! 4000 years later, with superior technology and 76 years of working this is the result???
