Denver to Rapid City, South Dakota

Wyoming scenery

Johnstons in Wyoming

Model of Crazy Horse Memorial

Working model of Crazy Horse Memorial

Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota

Today, we traveled northeast through Colorado and Wyoming into South Dakota with our final destination of Rapid City, South Dakota, which is about 325 miles. Before reaching Rapid City, about 40 miles south, we stopped at the Crazy Horse Memorial which is a mountain carving that has been in progress since 1948. The only money used to carve the monument is the money received at the gate, part of the money spent in the gift store, and donations. They will not take any money offered from the federal or state government because the designer, Korczak, believed the monument should "be built by the interested public and not the taxpayer."
The memorial was designed by the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, a Bostonian of Polish descent who won first prize at 1939 World's Fair for his sculpture, "Paderewski: Study of an Immortal". Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear chose Korczak to design and build the monument. He started the monument in 1948 with $174 when he was 40 years old. He died in 1982, but his wife and 7 of his 10 children are working to complete it. When it is finished, it will be 563 ft high, the feather will be 44 ft tall, the head 87 1/2 feet, the arm will be 263 ft, the mane will be 62 feet and the horse's head will be 219 feet. It will be visible in the round, not a single vantage point. Crazy Horse will be sitting on his horse, pointing, symbolizing his belief: "My lands are where my dead lie buried."
Crazy Horse was born to the Lakota Sioux in the Black Hills of South Dakota in about 1842. He fought against the U. S. after failing to uphold a treaty protecting the Black Hills as Indian territory after gold was discovered there. He lead a war party in June, 1876, at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He never signed a treaty or held a pen that signed one. He was stabbed by a US soldier at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, while under a flag of truce.
At the memorial, there is the Indian Museum of North America, an education and conference center, a native American Cultural Center, and in the summer, a laser light show presented on the monument.