We woke up in Custer State Park to another beautiful sunny day. We packed up the Lance (our trailer) once again and headed out on the road. Crazy horse is less than 20 miles away from Mt Rushmore but a world away from it in what the memorial is trying to achieve. When we arrived at the memorial they charged us $10/ person, and I thought wow that is kind of stiff. What I learned throughout the visit to the memorial changed my mind entirely. Once we got inside they showed us a short film on the story of Crazy Horse, the memorial, and the sculptor. I do not have all the facts about Crazy Horse, but the jist of the story is an 1868 treaty had deeded the land (the black hills and surrounding areas) to the Sioux Indians, but their ownership only lasted 6 years. When gold was discovered in the area, the U.S. government reclaimed the land. In 1876 the government ordered all the Sioux onto reservations, but three Indian chiefs, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Gall organized a resistance. (which eventually destroyed the 7th Calvary at Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn.) Their victory was short lived, Crazy Horse was stabbed in the back by an American soldier and they were ordered back to the reservations. Joe and I were really taken aback by listening to this story. It is sad that we do not know this and other pieces of our history, even if we did things that were not right. As we walked through the exhibits you had this sense of shame that our fore fathers drove these people of their lands into reservations. It was eye opening.
The story of the memorial and sculpture itself is just as interesting. The chief of the Sioux Indians commissioned the sculptor. This was in the 1940’s, the sculptor was not offered any payment for working on the project, which was okay with him. The sculptor (sorry cannot remember his name) actually worked under the sculptor of Mt Rushmore for a while, and was actually fired by the sculptor of Mt Rushmore. (lots of interesting crazy stories around both memorials) The project is solely funded by donations, entrance fees, revenue from gift shop, and money made by the sculptor and his family. When they arrived at the memorial site, the sculptor had to build his family a home, and he also built a farm to be able to earn money to take care of his family while working on this project. Currently they have the face of Crazy Horse complete. In the museum you can see a scale model of the sculptor and also what the memorial grounds will look like when they are finished. They are planning on building an Indian University, medical center, and cultural center, along with the memorial and the museum. All of the granite that they are blasting off they are reusing for all sorts of things, they grinded it down and built many of the roads around the memorial. They will also be using the granite to build a lot of the buildings for the medical center, school, and cultural center. The original sculptor passed away in the 80’s but the project is being kept in the family, one of his daughters is now the head sculptor, and 7 out of his 10 children work on the project everyday. It was such an interesting day, very educational!
After Crazy Horse we headed over to Hill City where we were told that we could get a steak dinner for $8.95! Hill City was on the way out of South Dakota heading towards Wyoming. We got into Hill City around 3:30pm and we walked around looking for the Alpine restaurant where this famous cheap steak dinner was to be served. The Alpine restaurant was actually part of a small bed & breakfast type hotel. We went to check out the restaurant and realized that they were not serving dinner until 5pm, so we walked through the town looking for somewhere else to eat and decided that it was still worth it to eat the steak dinner and we would just waste the next hour and a half window shopping. We headed back to the Alpine restaurant at 5pm and it was already packed! We only had to wait a few minutes and got a table. The waitress arrived and ask Joe and I if we had ever been to the restaurant before and we replied no. She said there were only 2 things on the menu, either a 6oz. Or 9oz. Filet minion steak. The steak came with a wedge salad (just iceberg with dressing), baked potato, and texas toast. 6oz. was $8.95 and 9oz. Was $10.95. Joe and I each had steak, wine, and dessert and the total bill before tip was $37!!! Amazing, it was delicious! After our awesome dinner we got back on the road and headed to Wyoming. We were going to Cody for a night before heading into Yellowstone National Park.
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