The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain, now also referred to as Crazy Horse Mountain. It is located approximately 16 miles from Mount Rushmore.

Crazy Horse Memorial

Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota

Crazy Horse Memorial, Black Hills, South Dakota

Crazy Horse Memorial

The memorial depicts Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, one of the most recognized Native Americans of the 1800s. On June 17, 1876, with more than 1,200 warriors, Crazy Horse helped defeat General George Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud. Eight days later, on June 25, 1876, Crazy Horse led a band of Lakota warriors against the Seventh U.S. Cavalry Battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel George Custer. The battle would become known as the Battle of Little Bighorn, but is also referred to as Custer’s Last Stand or the Battle of the Greasy Grass. At the end of the battle, Custer was dead, along with 9 of his officers and 280 of his enlisted men. One year later after the Battle of Little Big Horn, in 1877, Crazy Horse was killed by a military guard at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

The Crazy Horse memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear (1874-1953), a Lakota elder, and was to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski (1908-1982). The memorial has been in progress since 1948, with much work still remaining. The final dimensions of the sculpture are planned to be 641 feet long and 563 feet high, which would make it the largest sculpture in the world when completed.

For more information visit the Crazy Horse Memorial website at www.crazyhorsememorial.org.