SCOUTING YESTERDAY: Crazy Horse monument breaks ground 75 years ago

This week in South Dakota history: June 1-6

Photo courtesy of CJ Calva

Construction of the Crazy Horse Sioux Memorial, the “greatest sculptural effort ever attempted by man,” started 75 years ago.

Crazy Horse was a member of the Oglala band of the Lakota Sioux. As a warrior he was present for several events that led up to the Sioux War of 1876-1877, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn where he helped to defeat General George Custer and the 7th Cavalry of the U.S. Army. Crazy Horse never signed a treaty, avoided the white man’s culture and until his eventual surrender in 1877 refused to live on a reservation or flee to Canada.

The memorial was dedicated June 3, 1948, and attended by some 500 individuals, including five survivors of the Battle of Little Bighorn. Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski promised that the memorial would be a nonprofit educational project funded by the public, and that he would never take a salary or government money, partly why the project still isn’t finished today.

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