Day 5 - Rush Mountmore

Wall was celebrating their centennial celebration today. Everyone in town was invited to a BBQ that night, but we had to settle for sticky buns at Wall Drug before we hit the road headed for Mt. Rushmore. During our drive the prairie gave way to the Black Hills.

Seeing Mt. Rushmore is something we both always wanted to do. We toured the site learning about the monument’s history. We learned that the mountain that the carving took place on was named after lawyer, Mr. Rushmore, from NYC. He was touring the area and asked so many questions that his exasperated guide told him that the peak he inquired about didn’t have a name and why not call it Mt. Rushmore. The name kind of stuck.





Our next stop was Crazy Horse Monument. The local Native American tribes decided to carve the likeness of Crazy Horse as a way of honoring all tribes and for telling their perspective of history. The monument is huge, much bigger than Rushmore, but the work is being completed very slowly. The family working on the sculpture is very proud of the fact that they’ve accepted no federal funds for this project even though they’ve been offered over 10 million dollars on at least two different occasions.



Korczak Ziolkowski began work on the sculpture on June 3, 1948 and worked for the next 36 years of his life. Equipped with only a sledge hammer, a jack drill and a box of dynamite, Korczak blasted away 7,400,000 tons of granite to rough out the world’s largest carving, in the round. Now 25 years after Ziolkowski’s death 7 out of his 10 children, along with his wife continue to work on this monument.

Here are some of the dimensions of the sculpture. Overall the monument is 563 x 641 feet. Crazy Horse’s face is 88 feet high and his horse’s head is 219 feet high. The statue is as long as a cruise ship and as tall as a 60 story skyscraper.

Towards the end of the tour we overheard someone behind us explaining to his friend, “This is going to be 3-D or more”. Wow, this is exciting news. The sculpture has learned how to sculpt in the 4th or 5th dimension.

I saved the best for last. Kim knew that I had planned a third stop for the day, but she didn’t know where. We pulled into Flintstone’s Bedrock City. It would have cost us $16 to go into the park for a picture of us in front of Fred and Wilma’s house. It just didn’t seem worth the money. Somehow it sounded like a better idea during the planning stage. We shot a few pics of each other standing in the prehistoric family’s phone booth and left.



We ate dinner in Deadwood, the town known for its notorious gunslingers. We watched a reenactment of the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok during a poker game by Jack McCall. The audience was invited to participate while Jack McCall was captured and dragged down the street by an angry mob to another building where the trial was held. The play was very entertaining as it followed historical events. The jury found McCall not guilty, much to the amazement of the townspeople, especially the outspoken, Calamity Jane. In real life, McCall was followed, rearrested, given a far trial, followed by a first class hanging, and dumped into a unmarked grave.