Crazy Horse Memorial, Black Hills, South Dakota ,USA:

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument complex that is under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota. It depicts Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a private non-profit organization.The memorial consists of the mountain carving, the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural Center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet wide and 563 feet high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet high.The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is far from completion.If completed, it may become the world's largest sculpture, as well as the first non-religious statue to hold this record since 1967.In 1929, Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, initiated the project to honor Crazy Horse by writing to the Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, saying in part, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too."The American sculptor had worked on Mount Rushmore in 1924 under Gutzon Borglum. Standing Bear and Ziolkowski scouted potential monument sites together. Ziolkowski suggested carving the memorial in the Wyoming Tetons where the rock was better for sculpting, but the Sioux leader insisted it be carved in the Black Hills, which are sacred to Lakota culture.After making models, Ziolkowski started blasting for the monument in 1948.The memorial is a non-profit undertaking, and receives no federal or state funding. The Memorial Foundation charges fees for its visitor centers and earns revenue from its gift shops. Ziolkowski reportedly was offered $10 million for the project from the federal government on two occasions, but he turned the offers down. He felt that the project was more than just a mountain carving, and he feared that his plans for the broader educational and cultural goals of the memorial would be overturned by federal involvement.Ziolkowski died in 1982. Sixteen years later in 1998, the face of Crazy Horse was completed and dedicated.The entire complex is owned by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. Ziolkowski's wife Ruth and seven of their ten children work at the memorial.Their daughter Monique Ziolkowski, a sculptor, has modified some of her father's plans to make the sculpture work better. The foundation commissioned reports from two engineering firms in 2009 to help guide completion of the project.

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