Visiting the Black Hills of South Dakota

   After a great three days at Sleepy Hollow RV Park in Wall, South Dakota we continued west on Interstate 90 to Rapid City, SD for our stay at Black Hawk Creek RV Park. This will be our base of operations for our visits to Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, the Wild West town of Deadwood and Sturgis, SD where they are gearing up for Bike Week (August 4th thru August 13th) 

 

  The Black Hills comprises a large swath of land approx. 5,000 sq miles. The areas is an
isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming. Black Elk Peak, which rises to 7,244 feet, is the range's highest summit. The Black Hills encompass the Black Hills National Forest. The Black Hills are considered a holy site by several tribes including the Lakota. The hills are so called because of their dark appearance from a distance, as they are covered in evergreen trees.

Foothills of the Black Hills

 Mount Rushmore National Memorial has been on our 'Bucket List' for decades and the experience did not disappoint... centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills near Keystone, South  Dakota.

 

  The sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed the sculpture, called Shrine of Democracy, and oversaw the project's execution from 1927 until the time of his death in 1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum. The sculpture features the 60-foot-tall heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Mount Rushmore attracts more than two million visitors annually. The four presidents were chosen to represent the nation's birth, growth, development and preservation, respectively. The memorial park covers 1,278 acres and the mountain's elevation is 5,725 feet above sea level.

View From the Avenue of States

   Again, flawless weather, a soft breeze and light crowd numbers. You only pay for parking ($10.00 or $5.00 for seniors) Several Parks Service Rangers are available for information and assistance. For myself, looking upon the monument, there was almost atmosphere of solum respect that prevailed. Everyone we encountered was courteous and friendly to the extreme. Borglum and Company knew what they were doing... 

   If you have the opportunity, in the evening there is a compelling film shown, a tribute to Service Veterans with the lowering of the American Flag that is highly emotional... Reverent silence, a thousand people there and you could have heard a pin drop... followed by the illumination of the Memorial

Gutzon Borglum

 There is an area to the left of Washington's head that was               

intended to be where Thomas Jefferson's bust would be but 

the underlying granite had a fracture to large to continue.

Borglum made the decision to move Jefferson to the right side of Washington's bust.  In the image to the right is of the area where Jefferson was removed... The scars in the rock are all that remain of the necessary alteration. [You can click the picture to enlarge.]  

  Borglum had already completed the "Shrine to the Confederacy," better know as 'Stone Mountain' in the state of Georgia.  The sculpture at Mount Rushmore is built on land that was taken from the Sioux Nation in the 1870s. The Sioux continue to demand return of the land, and in 1980 the US Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians that the taking of the Black Hills required just compensation, and awarded the tribe $102 million. The Sioux have refused the money, which has grown per interest to over a billion dollars, and to this day demand the return of the land. 

  Up next was the Memorial dedicated to Crazy Horse, a mountain monument under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in South Dakota.  It will depict the Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, riding a horse and pointing to his tribal land. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is far from completion.

   The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet long and 563 feet high. The outstretched arm will be 263 feet long, the opening under arm 70 feet wide and 100 feet high, and the finger 29 feet 6 inches long. The face of Crazy Horse, completed in 1998, is 87 feet 6 inches high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet high.  

   There are volumes of information on Lakota Chief Crazy Horse... too much for this humble blog.  There is also a ton of information on the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski. There are several examples of Ziolkowski's magnificent ability as an artist at the Indian Museum of North America, an Indian heritage exhibit, attached to the site.  I strongly encourage you to take full advantage of the museum complex as part of your visit to the Memorial.  

   The sculpture known as "Fighting Stallions" stands outside the Indian Museum.

Fighting Stallions

   The sculpture stands 17' tall with the entire work balanced on one of the horses tails.          I think it comes down to personal preference as to who was the better sculptor, Borglum or Ziolkowski... my money is on Korczak !

   I will end this post here and pick up next time with Custer State Park, Deadwood and Sturgis South Dakota. 

   Thanx for following or travels this summer... Through these posts I  hope to entertain, inform and inspire you to get out there and see all this beautiful country has to offer, while you still can...