Planning and early construction under Korczak Ziolkowski (1931–1982) Henry Standing Bear (Mato Naji), an Oglala Lakota chief, and well-known statesman and elder in the Native American community, recruited and commissioned Polish-American sculptor
Korczak Ziolkowski to build the Crazy Horse Memorial in the
Black Hills of
South Dakota. In October 1931,
Luther Standing Bear, Henry's older brother, wrote to sculptor
Gutzon Borglum, who was carving the heads of four American presidents at
Mount Rushmore. Luther suggested that it would be "most fitting to have the face of Crazy Horse sculpted there. Crazy Horse is the real patriot of the Sioux tribe and the only one worthy to place by the side of Washington and Lincoln." Borglum never replied. Thereafter, Henry Standing Bear began a campaign to have Borglum carve an image of Crazy Horse on Mount Rushmore. In summer of 1935, Standing Bear, frustrated over the stalled Crazy Horse project, wrote to James H. Cook, a long time friend of Chief
Red Cloud's, "I am struggling hopelessly with this because I am without funds, no employment and no assistance from any Indian or White." On November 7, 1939, Henry Standing Bear wrote to the Polish-American sculptor
Korczak Ziolkowski, who worked on
Mount Rushmore under
Gutzon Borglum. He informed the sculptor, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too." Standing Bear also wrote a letter to Undersecretary
Oscar Chapman of the
Department of the Interior, offering all his own fertile 900 acres (365 ha) in exchange for the barren mountain for the purpose of paying honor to Crazy Horse. The government responded positively, and the
U.S. Forest Service, responsible for the land, agreed to grant a permit for the use of the land, with a commission to oversee the project. Standing Bear chose not to seek government funds and relied instead upon influential Americans interested in the welfare of the American Indian to privately fund the project. In the spring of 1940, Ziolkowski spent three weeks with Standing Bear at
Pine Ridge, South Dakota, discussing land ownership issues and learning about Crazy Horse and the Lakota way of life. According to Ziolkowski, "Standing Bear grew very angry when he spoke of the broken
Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868). That was the one I'd read about in which the President promised the Black Hills would belong to the Indians forever. I remember how his old eyes flashed out of that dark mahogany face, then he would shake his head and fall silent for a long while." Instead, as he stated on a 1961 guest appearance on the TV show
To Tell the Truth, he raised money for the project by charging seventy-five cents admission to the monument work area.
Construction under Ruth Ziolkowski (1982–2014) After Ziolkowski died in 1982 at age 74, his widow
Ruth Ziolkowski took charge of the sculpture, overseeing work on the project as CEO from the 1980s to the 2010s. Ruth Ziolkowski focused on the completion of Crazy Horse's face first, instead of the horse as her husband had originally planned. She believed that Crazy Horse's face, once completed, would increase the sculpture's draw as a tourist attraction, which would provide additional funding. Ruth Ziolkowski and seven of the Ziolkowskis' 10 children carried on work at the memorial. Daughter Monique Ziolkowski, herself a sculptor, modified some of her father's plans to ensure that the weight of the outstretched arm was supported sufficiently. The foundation commissioned reports from two engineering firms in 2009 to help guide completion of the project. Monique Ziolkowski became CEO and three of her siblings continued to work on the project, as well as three of the Ziolkowskis' grandsons, including Caleb, who has gone on to become the "chief mountain officer".
Construction since 2014 With Monique Ziolkowski as CEO, work focused on finishing the outstretched left arm of Crazy Horse, in addition to expanding the on-site Indian University of North America, a joint-venture with
Black Hills State University that has offered summer programs for university students of Native American descent since 2011. Monique Ziolkowski stepped down as CEO in 2021 to focus on artwork and other aspects of the memorial site, with the foundation eventually naming Whitney A. Rencountre II, who had held various education-based positions including associate director of the Indian University, as its new CEO in August 2022. The memorial celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2023. Crazy Horse's left hand was finished by 2024, with finishing work commencing in summer 2024 on the backside of his arm to make way for a new tower crane designed to reach all parts of the carving. The crane, with an estimated cost of $5.2 million, was made possible by several anonymous donations and was procured in 2023, with all parts weighing combined, and was shipped to the mountain on 17 truck beds. The crane was assembled by the summer of 2025 and has been used by the crew to remove granite cutout blocks and move equipment in dramatically reduced time. This in turn has allowed for more focus on carving, which has moved on to the horse's mane and Crazy Horse's right shoulder. == Geology of the monument site ==