Nearly 8 decades later, the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota is still taking shape

It's been nearly 80 years since work began on the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

While progress has been made over the decades, years of construction still lie ahead. Like many Minnesotans this time of year, WCCO's John Lauritsen and photojournalist Mike Durenberger traveled to the Black Hills to learn more about the memorial's unique history and its vision for the future.

"It's amazing what they can do," said visitor Kirk Ferring of Rosemount, Minnesota. "With dynamite, that's even more impressive."

Since the late 1940s, Thunderhead Mountain has been a 300,000-square-foot canvas for a sculpture that's slowly, but surely, taking shape.

"The focus now is the horse's head. And right now, you see the hand resting on the horse's mane," said Whitney Rencountre II, CEO of the Crazy Horse Memorial.

The famous Lakota warrior Crazy Horse is the man in the mountain. He's there because his first cousin, Chief Henry Standing Bear, was worried that with so many Native Americans being forced off their land, their culture could be forgotten.

"In his mind, he wanted to carve this mountain so no matter what happened to our people, there would always be a place for people to come learn, and we could protect and preserve our culture," said Rencountre.

Standing Bear ultimately turned to artist Korczak Ziolkowski, who had helped with Mount Rushmore and whose Paderewski sculpture won first prize at the 1939 World's Fair.

"Korczak was an orphan. As a young man, he was abused by adopted parents. So, when he learned about the Native American people, he kind of had a heart for the underdog," said Rencountre.

From the beginning, it seemed like an impossible project. There was no funding, and Ziolkowski had to build roads and more than 700 stairs to the top before he could even begin. His equipment, including his Buda machine, would often break down. But during the first blast in 1948, five survivors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn were guests.

"The bottom line is he knew he would never live to see any finishing surface," said Rencountre.

And he didn't. Ziolkowski died in 1982. But his wife, Ruth, and his 10 children carried on his mission, helping to drill, blast, and push rock off the mountain. In 1998, Crazy Horse's face finally came into focus.

The face is 87 feet tall. And to put this in perspective, all four presidents' heads on Mount Rushmore could fit on the side of Crazy Horse's head.

That's because his hair and his horse will cover much of the mountain. Crazy Horse's left hand was finished in 2024. The challenge in all of this is that the Lakota warrior never let anyone take his picture. Up close, battle scars are carved into his granite face. Those details came from chiefs and warriors who once rode with Crazy Horse.

"Right now, at the pace we are going, we could have the horse's head done in 10 years," said Rencountre.

Rencountre said the site has turned down millions of dollars in federal money over the years and mostly relies on private funds and visitor donations.

It's all led to the opening of a university and museum on campus, the latter of which has more than 14,000 items from tribal leaders. But at the heart of it all, the face of a warrior will always be there. A man, Rencountre says, led his people with courage and compassion.

"A young Lakota warrior who accomplished something greater than himself," said Rencountre. "We have Native Americans, Caucasians, different races of people working together towards a common cause. And that is something we don't see a lot in today's world."

The Crazy Horse Memorial is about 25 minutes from Mount Rushmore. It's open seven days a week.

So far, more than $250 million in private funds have been spent on the project.