The Crazy Horse Monument project began to honor a legendary and skillful Native American warrior of the Lakota Sioux tribe who fought to protect the native values and way of life.

His most famous involvement in battle, at the Battle of Little Bighorn, began in late 1875, when members of the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes defiantly left their U.S. approved reservations.

This defiance did not sit well with the U.S. Army, so they sent in troops to drive all free Indians back to their reservations. A battle broke out at Rosebud Creek on June 17, 1876 and again at Little Bighorn on the 25th, but both times the Native American warriors proved to be too strong for the brigade, and they quickly overtook U.S forces. It was the largest defeat of the U.S. by Native American forces in history.

Being relentlessly hunted down by U.S. forces along with a decline in the buffalo population, Crazy Horse reluctantly surrendered on May 6, 1877. In September of the same year, he left his assigned reservation to take his sick wife to her parents, and General George Cook promptly ordered for his arrest. As they led him to a guardhouse, he began to struggle, and a soldier stabbed him to death.

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and Lakota chief Henry Standing Bear began work on the massive Crazy Horse Memorial on June 3, 1948 to honor the culture, tradition, and living heritage of Native Americans. Though Ziolkowski died in 1980, the project continues to progress through his family and donors, having recently completed and dedicated the face of Crazy Horse in 1998 with precision explosive engineering.

Researched, written, and narrated by University of West Florida Public History Student Haley Benton.