CRAZY HORSE, S.D. – Mount Rushmore isn't the only mountain carving to see in the Black Hills. Just 17 miles from the presidents is the Crazy Horse Memorial.

A gigantic figure of the American Indian Crazy Horse is being cut from granite. When complete (no date is set), it will show the warrior pointing over the head of his horse.

MALECIA EL-AMIN/Staff

The Crazy Horse Memorial has continued without government funding despite the death of the sculptor in 1982.

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On June 3, the nonprofit project honoring all American Indians marked its 60th year in the making. Ten years ago on the same date, the completed head of the Lakota who helped defeat Gen. George Custer at Little Bighorn was unveiled.

And Sept. 6 will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Crazy Horse sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who died in 1982. (It's also the date of Crazy Horse's death in 1877.) Ziolkowski's wife, Ruth, along with many employees and seven of the 10 Ziolkowski children, continue to carry out the sculptor's vision all year – rain, snow or shine – without government funding.

"We work with Mother Nature," his widow, who turned 82 Thursday, tells a crowd of diners in the memorial's Laughing Water Restaurant.

Nobody knows what Crazy Horse really looked like. The 87 ½-foot head atop a 563-foot granite outcrop is a composite likeness that Ziolkowski (pronounced jewel-CUFF-ski) formed from "word pictures" given in the 1940s by elderly American Indians who knew him.

A key part of the experience is to visit the theater to the left of the visitor center's entrance to view the film Crazy Horse: Dynamite & Dreams.

You may have heard about this sculpture for years, but you might not have known that Ziolkowski was invited to create the piece by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear.

"My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has heroes, too," a plaque above the information booth outside the theater says. These were the words of Standing Bear's 1939 invitation to Ziolkowski.

After viewing the film, there's more to explore: the Indian Museum of North America, the gift shop, the Crazy Horse model by Ziolkowski that's 1/34th the size of what the finished sculpture will look like, and more.

Ms. Ziolkowski says 95 percent of the displayed items at the memorial are donated.

Her husband went above and beyond the scope of the Crazy Horse tribute. In 1978, he started a scholarship for American Indian students.

Eventually, the memorial site owned by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation is expected to include the Indian University of North America and Medical Training Center.

Ms. Ziolkowski is proud that the project has continued after her husband's death.

"Korczak didn't want to become another white man who made a promise and didn't keep his promise" to Indians, she says.

Prices for attractions vary. Contact: 605-673-4681; www.crazyhorsememorial.org.