National Park After Dark - The Dark History of Mount Rushmore National Memorial

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Carved into the granite heart of the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore is one of America’s most recognizable (and controversial) monuments. Beneath the towering faces of four presidents lies a dark and often untold history of stolen land, massacres, and the erasure of Indigenous people who have called this place sacred for generations. From sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s troubling past to the Lakota’s ongoing fight for recognition through the nearby Crazy Horse Memorial, this episode explores how a monument meant to celebrate a nation has become a lasting reminder of the violence and displacement.Learn more about the Save Our Signs ProjectFor a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to the week’s partners!Cash App: Download Cash App Today: [https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/ejy661fu] #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Direct Deposit, Overdraft Coverage and Discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.Ollie: Take the guesswork out of your dog's well-being. Go to ollie.com/npad and use code npad to get 60% off your first box!Quince: Use our link to get free shipping and 365-day returns.Blueland: Use our link to get 15% off your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Focus. Listen to work getting done with Monday.com. Relax. As AI does the manual work, while your teams are aligned on a single source of truth. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform, so flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Notice you're limitless.

Limitless. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally. Breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders.

That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Public monuments tell us more than history.

They tell us who and what a nation chooses to honor. For generations, the bronze statue of J. Marion Sims stood proudly along New York's Fifth Avenue, celebrating him as the father of modern gynecology. Yet the truth behind his fame was built on something much darker. Sims conducted repeated surgeries on enslaved black women without anesthesia, believing they felt less pain. His statue's eventual removal wasn't about erasing history, it was about finally acknowledging the truth and no longer celebrating him.

Across Manhattan, another monument sparked outrage, the towering bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt outside the Museum of Natural History. It showed the president high on horseback with an indigenous man and an African man walking below him. When it was unveiled in 1940, it was seen as a celebration of leadership. Today, many argue it's a celebration of white supremacy. In In 2022, after years of debate, the statue was finally taken down, its removal marking a slow shift towards acknowledging the harder truths, even around celebrated presidents. Elsewhere across dozens of cities, statues of Christopher Columbus have been defaced, removed, or quietly boxed away. Once hailed as the bold explorer who discovered the new world, Columbus is now recognized for bringing in

centuries of violence, enslavement, and indigenous genocide. Red paint has stand his statues in Baltimore and Boston, where protesters have left messages calling him what history long ignored. A conqueror, not a hero. Each of these monuments, from doctors to presidents to explorers, reveals a turning tide in how America confronts its past. The stories once carved in bronze and stone are being re-examined, their meanings rewritten. And now the conversation leads to the conversation leads us to one of the most controversial monuments of all. Carved not in a city square, but deep into sacred Lakota land itself, Mount Rushmore. Welcome to National Park After Dark.

Hello everyone and welcome back to National Park After Dark and Cassie is going where I feel like we've been heading for a long time to Mount Rushmore. And the conversation that needs to be had about it because we've danced around it long enough. We've danced around it long enough. We haven't mentioned. mentioned it long enough. And it feels very fitting to talk about it today because it is not a coincidence. We don't believe in those that this episode is airing on what has been known in history for a very long time as Columbus Day, but has shifted more towards indigenous people's day. It is coming out on that Monday if you're listening, the day it airs. Yeah, October 13th. And I know that you intentionally did this. And I'm really excited because I know it was kind of brewing when

We did our one-star review episode a few weeks ago, and we chose Mount Rushmore and a lot of people have a lot of feelings about it. So that in the arch, which... Yeah, the Arch also has... The Arch will also be one we do one day because the arch is also very problematic. Yeah, okay. I don't know much about it. I've never been there. I recently researched it, and man, is it problematic?

Okay. Well, let's tackle one thing at a time. And the Mount Rushmore one, I'm really excited. about too because it's always really nice when we've been to these physical locations and we try our bet we travel a lot and we go to a lot of these places and we try and speak from a place of experience at least physically visiting locations that we're telling the stories about of course we we are only 35 I mean four oh my god speak for yourself I'm almost 35 sorry I'm 35 in a couple months wow I just aged myself Jesus slow down

Give myself a jump scare. But yeah, so we've been here, and it was one of the follow-up of Crazy Horse was the better part of the experience, and I'm sure you're going to get to that. So I'm stoked that you're talking about this today. Yeah, yeah, it feels fitting. And like you said, it's nice that we've been there and we've had our own experience. And I think that, and we're going to get into it a lot with this, is that we were kind of shocked about what we saw when we went to Mount Rushmore and we will dive into that. But I think

part of why I was so gravitated towards this subject is because when you're growing up, you learn and see pictures of Mount Rushmore all the time. I mean, I remember almost every history textbook I ever had had Mount Rushmore just plastered on it. Even if it wasn't about Mount Rushmore, if it was about American history, there was like, it was on the cover. It was on the back. It was like it was somewhere within the pages was Mount Rushmore, like this American pillar of history, this patriotic symbol. And that has been what Americans have viewed as like kind of the symbol of America. But there's been so much history behind that that's been omitted and kind of buried a way that you have to search for. So even myself included, I mean, growing up, I was always like,

wow, Mount Rushmore. It seems kind of dumb because I've never understood carving faces into a mountain. But it was like, that's American, you know, that that's an American symbol right there. And it wasn't until I started actually really diving into the history that I realized that there's a lot more to it than that. Okay. Well, I'm ready to hear what you found out. Yes. So before we dive into Mount Rushmore, I did want to talk about Columbus Day a little bit, too, just because it comes out on Columbus Day and just going into stories that have been celebrated. and there's actually a darker twist to that.

I thought that it would be important just to do a quick little mention of Columbus Day because I think to a lot of people, including myself for a very long time, it's you don't really think about Columbus Day. You're like, oh, this is a day I get off from work, great. And a story. You know, you don't really think about it too much deeper. And then, of course, in recent years, conversations have come forward that that's not, that Columbus Day actually signifies honoring.

something that is really dark. And I thought that we should go into that a little bit. Yeah, I think it's more of just kind of collectively waking up to critically think about the holidays that we celebrate and that have we've been through no fault of our own just raised in an environment and a climate where that was the norm. Totally. You know, same goes with Mount Rushmore. Same, I have the same exact vision of a textbook type of thing. And honestly, like, even as a kid thinking, like, feeling pride about that, like, this is my country and this is America. And I'm proud to be, you know, part of this whole thing. And, you know, it's just something that as you become an adult, it's not just questioning history, in particular in American history. It's questioning everything, just kind of critically thinking

about what is it that I've been brought up to think and ways of. patterns of being and not saying like you need to throw the table over on every single thing, but just to re-examine it and through a different perspective or lens and just give pause to maybe think of a different view. And like you said, a lot of this history was purposefully omitted. So it's taking that into account too and just taking a look at it as a whole instead of just the little sliver that we were served for so long. Yes. Exactly. Beautifully said. So going into just a little bit about Columbus Day first. Columbus Day was originally created

to mark Christopher Columbus's 1492 landing in Americas. Over time, it became a day for Italian Americans as well to celebrate their heritage and contributions to the U.S. Today, the holiday is often viewed as a reminder that America has always been shaped by immigrants

and their unique cultures. For a long time, Columbus Day was taught as a story of bravery. Kids learned that Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492 and discovered, a new world, but the truth is much darker. Columbus never actually set foot on the mainland of North America. Instead, he landed on the Caribbean islands like the Bahamas or Hispaniola and explored the coast of Central and South America. His voyages opened the door for European

colonization, but he never reached what is now the United States or Canada. When he arrived in the Caribbean, Columbus met the Taieno people who welcomed him. Instead of friendship, he enslaved them. Many were forced to mine gold under Bruton. conditions. Those who didn't meet quotas were tortured, maimed, or killed. Columbus also sent thousands of indigenous people back to Spain as slaves, and many died on their way. His arrival brought diseases like smallpox and measles that native communities had no immunity to. In Hispaniola, the Taino people fell from hundreds of thousands to only a few hundred within two generations. The abuse went even further. Columbus and his men raped, enslaved, and murdered the Taino women

and girls selling them into sex trafficking. In his own journals, Columbus even wrote about how young girls, some as young as 9 or 10, were in demand. The violence inspired the larger pattern of colonization brought to the United States where indigenous women and children were targeted, trafficked, and dehumanized for centuries. Because of this legacy, Columbus Day has become one of the most controversial U.S. holidays. Many places now recognize Indigenous People's Day, instead, honoring Native communities and their resilience instead of of celebrating a man tied to conquest and exploitation. So knowing all of this information, it makes you question, why is some history memorialized while others are shoved away? The saying goes,

the victors are the ones who write our history. But when the victors are the ones committing the atrocities, how can we trust the retelling of history is correct? And of course, one memorial that truly glorifies American history while largely omitting the ugly part is Mount Rushmore. At this point, I think most of us have learned that it's controversial at the very least. But I don't think a lot of people know exactly why. And again, going back to our conversation earlier, I don't think that is necessarily. Like, we're at fault for that. It's just how we were raised and what we were taught because it's been largely omitted from education.

But I think it's time that we take a much deeper dive, especially if you haven't heard before. Or if this is a refresh for you. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen.

Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. So first, I want to take a moment to explain the creation of Mount Rushmore. more in depth, before we backtrack to the history of the lands there and the bloodshed that occurred in order for it to exist. In 1923, a South Dakota historian named Don Robinson had a vision. He wanted to draw a tourist to his state specifically to the towering granite spires known as the needles deep in the Black Hills, called by local native communities paha-sapa, meaning Black Hills. His idea was to carve the likeness of famous figures of the American West into the rocks,

explorers, frontiersmen, and even native leaders. When he approached sculptor Gutson Borglum, he didn't yet realize how dramatically the project would change. Borglum was a man drawn to colossal art and nationalist ideas. He had once worked on the Confederate Memorial at Stone Mountain in Georgia, a project financed by the Ku Klux Klan, and he shared their obsession with a white America. Oh, so the roots of this is better intentions of carving people of all kinds. Yes, the original idea was that. People of all kinds. It was more this person, it seems like, they wanted to truly embody what the West was. And that included indigenous people. Okay. But then the person he reached out to, Borglam, was not the right person to bring this vision to life because he had ties to the KKK and had no interest in honoring indigenous communities. Okay. So Borglam looked at Robinson's sketches. and was uninterested in his idea.

He wanted something that he thought would be grander, something that told what he called the story of America itself. He chose Mount Rushmore, a granite peak named for a New York lawyer who had passed through the area decades earlier to survey the land for a mining operation. And to give you an idea of how random of a decision it was to name the mountain after this man, I found an excerpt on the NPS site of a letter he wrote explaining how he named it after himself. Because this man, I mean, let's put into context here that the Lakota people and many indigenous people lived in this area for thousands of years. And this man came in just one year for

off and on for one year. He didn't even live here for a mining operation and was like, hey, this mountain should be named after me. So he wrote in this letter, quote, I was deeply impressed with the hills and particularly with a mountain of granite rock that rose above. the neighboring peaks. On one occasion, on one occasion, while looking from near its base with almost awe at this majestic pile, I asked of the men who were with me for its name. They said it had no name, but one of them spoke up and said, we will name it now and name it Rushmore Peak. That was the origin of the name it bears. As I have been informed, it is called Rushmore Peak, Rushmore Mountain and Rushmore Rock after this lawyer whose last name was Rushmore. God. It's like, okay,

did you guys do any research? No. Yeah. Okay. You just arrived and you're like, does this have a name? Not that I know of. Let's name it. Not that I'm aware of. And for the 10 other white guys around me, nobody thinks it has a name. So yeah. And the craziest part is that it stuck, obviously, because we still call it Mount Rushmore. I was just going to say, I can't even believe that took hold. That's the origin story of. Yeah, it's just like, all right, whatever. Sure, that makes sense. But in reality, it's not true. This mountain was not unnamed. It was and is a sacred mountain to the Lakota people. They had long since named it to N. Kashila Shaquaype, meaning six grandfathers. The six grandfathers was named by Lakota Medicine Man, Nicholas Black Elk after a vision. The vision was of six

sacred directions, west, east, north, south, above and below. The direction was the direction. The direction were said to represent kindness and love full of years and wisdom like human grandfathers. The mountain itself was a sacred site for prayer and devotion and represented these six spiritual directions. So a mountain with a name with a real meaning. And not only that, but it's the fact that the indigenous peoples not only had this reverence for this sacred mountain, but the true meaning behind it compared to the faces and they're kind of what they are all about now that we've discovered over time and just kind of the morality or lack thereof of some of those people. It's just couldn't be more opposite. Right. Yeah, it's like there was actual sacred meaning

and I mean we find that with a lot of things though, right? We find a lot in American history and we don't have to dive down this path, but where mountains are named specifically after people for no reason who have just like come across this. And then they actually have real deep indigenous meanings and sacred meanings that are so much more special and more important than just like naming it after some random guy. And I mean, yeah, but no, I mean like I don't even mean with rush, like the title Rushmore. I mean like, what did you just refresh my memory. I know you just said it five seconds ago. but like it was named after all the sake of directions and the kindness and peace and love that human grandfathers would be spiritual directions yeah it's like that compared to the men that are on

there now not the guy Rushmore was named after but the men's faces who are carved into there right now and what they have kind of represented it yeah it's just a very stark difference it is And we're going, I mean, that's what this whole episode is going to be about is just how it's not even, I mean, it is the monument itself. It represents a lot of stuff that is very dark. But the location of where the monument is is what makes it so really, really bad. I mean, for lack of a better term, I mean, it's a slap in the face. Yeah, it is. It truly is.

And we're going to learn more about it. So let's jump into it. So it does have a name. It is not Mount Rushmore and they name it this. So going back into Borglam and him picking a place to carve what he envisions to be the American story into the mountains, he decides that this mountain area is the place because of its broad, solid face and southern exposure was basically his decision making. Instead of Western heroes, Borglum selected four presidents to embody the nation's birth,

growth, development, and preservation. George Washington would represent the founding of the Republic, Thomas Jefferson, the expansion westward, the very idea of manifest destiny, Theodore Roosevelt, the industrial, and rise of power in the country at the turn of the 20th century, and Abraham Lincoln for the unity preserved through the Civil War. Work began in October 1927, and each day at sunrise, the sound of dynamite echoed through the valley as hundreds of men clung to the cliffs, hanging from harnesses and swinging drills. They blasted and carved more than 450,000 tons of granite, roughing out the president's faces

with dynamite before shaping the details by hand. It was dangerous and exhausting work, but remarkably, not a single worker was killed during the 14 years of its construction. That is very surprising to me. I agree. Especially just when you look back in this time frame that it's happening in the 1930s and the technology that was around at that point. Yeah, and safe working conditions. And safe working conditions, were not a thing. Prioritized at all. And just like the scale of the project as well and just the inherent risk that you take in doing work like that.

And accidents happen all of the time in much less crazy conditions. So yeah, that's surprising. I mean, great. I'm happy to hear that. Story without death. Just kidding. There's a lot of death in this. Just not in this point.

So Washington's face was completed. first, dedicated in 1930. Jefferson's followed in 1936, Lincoln in 1937, and Roosevelt in 1939. Borgland planned to sculpt full chess of each man, but the Great Depression drained funding. And when he died in 1941, his son Lincoln Borglam took over and finished what his father had started, which ended up being four 60-foot-tall heads. The project cost just under $1 million, most of which was funded by the federal government, and the job of its preservation was hand over to the National Park Service in 1933. To many, Mount Rushmore became an incredible example of engineering art and a symbol of national pride. The site evolved into a major destination with over

two million people visiting each year. After the monument's completion on October 31, 1941, Halloween. Oh. A walkway of flags were added in 1976. A vast viewing terrace was completed in the 1990s, along with the museum telling the story of the carvings creation. But many of many, of those exhibits failed to tell the deeper truth, that the land itself had been illegally ripped from the people to whom it had been promised by the U.S. government assuring indigenous communities that it was there for, quote, as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers flow. So let's get in. Now that we know how it was created, the story behind the building of Mount Rushmore. Let's get into how the U.S. government took that land. Long before a chisel touched

the granite, the United States had signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 with the Sioux which included the Brulay peoples, Ogilala, Minacoonjo, Yang Tonai, Hunk, Papa, and others, along with the Arapahoe allies. The treaty recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, reserved exclusively for native use. It promised peace and protection and exchange for an end to hostilities with white settlers, and for a brief period of time, peace was held by both parties. To the Lakota, the Black Hills were the spiritual center of the world, a sacred place of origin and prayer. But when gold was discovered there in 1874, the government broke its own promise when miners flooded in by the thousands. President Ulysses S. Grant declared any Lakota who refused to move off

that land and onto other reservations as hostile, and the U.S. Army was sent to drive them out. What followed was the Great Sioux War of 1876 to 1877, which was a violent clash between the U.S. government and the Allied forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and the Arapaho peoples. The war spread across the northern plains from the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming to the Yellowstone River in Montana. It wasn't a single battle, but a relentless campaign of attacks, counterattacks, and destruction. The army burned lodges and food stores, while Native warriors attacked wagon trains and forced. And I think one, when I was researching this, one thing that I came across, I was like, oh, so these didn't happen in the Black Hills. And I think that that's an important delineation to make is that all of these battles and wars weren't happening in necessarily the Black Hills, but all of them

were because they were trying to keep their land in the Black Hills. Okay. Understood. In March 1876, Colonel Joseph Reynolds led U.S. soldiers in a dawn raid on Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota villages along the Powder River. They destroyed more than 100 lodges, burned food supplies, and killed civilians, mostly women and children. Only a handful of native people died that morning, but it united the tribes in anger. That spring, as new alliances formed, a quiet leader emerged among them. His name was Crazy Horse. Born to Shunkewitiko, around 1840 near Rapid Creek, he had shown vision and courage since he was a child. He wasn't a chief by inheritance but by spirit. As a teenager, he had completed the right of Habla Chaya,

which means crying for a vision, which was fasting alone in the hills until he saw a purpose. When he returned, he painted a lightning bolt across his face and a feather in his hair, and he rode into battle. He was known for humility, never boasting, and never posing for photographs, believing a picture could steal a person's soul. By the summer of 1876, Crazy Horse was leading warriors into battle against overwhelming odds. On June 17th, he and roughly 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne fighters clashed with General George Cook's 1,000 soldiers at the Battle of Rosebud. After seven hours of fierce fighting, Crook retreated, suffering nine dead and 21 wounded. The Native Alliance had 28 killed and 56 wounded. It was a costly but strategic victory that prevented Crook from

joining Custer before the next great confrontation. Just over a week later, Custer rode towards the Little Bighorn River in southeastern Montana. There, more than 7,000 Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho had gathered for the summer hunt. It was the largest indigenous encampment the plains had ever seen. Custer ignored warnings that the village was far larger than expected. On June 25th, he divided his 7th Calvary into three detachments and charged into the valley. Within hours, his command was surrounded by warriors led by Crazy Horse and two other leaders, Chief Gall and two moons. Custer and more than 260 of his men were killed, including his brothers and nephew. The Lakota called it the Battle of Greasy Grass. To the U.S., it would be remembered as Custer's last stand.

It was one of the few times in American history when Native forces decisively defeated the U.S. Army, but the victory would bring a devastating retaliation. News of Custer's defeat spread quickly. The U.S. government launched a full-scale campaign to crush the Sioux and their allies. Through the winter of 1876 and into 1877, the army pushed relentlessly. Colonel Nelson Miles fought Crazy Horses Band at Wolf Mountain in January. It was a bitter, freezing battle, snow knee-deep, wind howling through the hills. The Lakota and Cheyenne fought bravely, but were outgunned and starving. The buffalo herds that had sustained them were gone, as the U.S. Army had slaughtered them to deprive them of food. And that, always just reading that reminds me of that picture that I'm sure a lot of listeners have seen before

is of the there's a white man sitting on top of a massive pile of skulls of bison yeah and the whole I think to understand that photo fully the context behind why they were eradicating bison was because that was a food source for that was a main food source for indigenous people and who had been thriving off the land with them and keeping their populations alive for thousands of years. And then white men came in and just decimated them to almost near extinction. Yeah. And that has been a topic for an episode that we have both had on our minds for quite literally years. And I have a book right on my bookshelf over here about it. So it's going to happen at some point for sure. And there's, I think it's the Ken Burns documentary about the bison as well. And we have a lot,

long story short, we, it's coming at some point. It's just such a heavy and important. And it's a topic that needs, not that we go into any episode lightly. And of course, hopefully it comes across that we care deeply about each episode that we do. But that one is just so all-encompassing and really needs to be done with a lot of research and care. And because it's just, it's not just about bison. No, it's not. You know, it goes so much deeper. And there's so much to it, especially coming out of the other side of it now with

recognizing what happened and trying to write that wrong and working with different indigenous cultures to bring bison back and yada yada. So yeah. Yeah. It's very much, yeah, it's very much an ongoing. going topic. I mean, this happened hundreds of years ago at this point, but it still has affected the landscape that we see today. And interestingly enough, what they did at this time, even today, I know you go to Yellowstone and you see bison everywhere and you're like, oh, wow, they're back.

And that's not true because most, the majority of bison populations in the U.S. are farm raised, where they used to be wild across the Midwest and West. So it's this ongoing battle of, of restoring these populations and where they can live. And because, of course, the lands have changed a lot since that time. But anyway, it's a very long conversation that goes into the treatment of indigenous people, but also huge conservation efforts that are bleeding into today. Yeah, there's one thing, you know, just different questions and prompts and thought starters that people sometimes share, you know, as like ice breakers or just things to consider.

there's one that's always like if you could go back in time, you know, the one that everyone really asked is like if you could have dinner with somebody from the past who's now deceased, who would it be? And what would you talk about type of thing? Yeah. Mine is, I love to think or ask people about if you could go back in time and witness, and if you could go back in time and witness a historical event, what would it be? And I don't know if this is like an event, but it's something that we will.

never, certainly never see again in our lifetimes or probably ever considering the way things are going. But I would just love to bear witness to a great herd of bison in the plains of America. Or what was, what is now America? Just the sheer amount of those animals and just how the indigenous people interacted with them and managed them and just, it's like a herd of animals that the likes of which we will never understand, especially as people who have seen bison in Yellowstone and have been quite literally in the middle of a herd as they're running and you're like, holy shit, there are so many bison. Like your mind, you're like, they seem like they go on forever.

But that's just a fraction of what bison herds used to look like. And I just think it would be so cool to witness something like that. And just to see the wilds of what is now America before we decimated everything. I mean, intentionally in this case. To see America before settlers arrived. Yes. Oh, my God. Just a snapshot.

Yeah. That would be really interesting. So cool. Anyway, okay, please go on. So going back into this battle and this war that's going on the Great Sea War that's happening, They were in these battles that were happening in the midst of winter. They're now starving the indigenous people out, which are making things hard. And by spring, Crazy Horses people were trapped between hunger and annihilation from settlers.

By May 1877, Crazy Horse knew that the fight was over. Other bands had surrendered and were being fed at the Red Cloud Agency near what is now Crawford, Nebraska. He decided that to save his people, he would do the same. To him, he wasn't surrendering or giving up. It was giving his people a chance to survive and make a comeback at a later time. The procession that arrived there on May 6th was silent and solemn, with 900 people, families weak from hunger and 2,000 horses. Witnesses said that the moment was both heartbreaking and admirable. Crazy horse dismounted, shook hands with the commanding officer, and laid down his rifle. And that marked the end of the Great Sioux War. Peace at the Red Cloud Agency, however, was not the kind of piece Crazy Horse had imagined. The agency sat on the wide plains near Nebraska's Pine Ridge, surrounded by soldiers and fences. Rations of flour, salt pork, and coffee replaced the wild game his people had once hunted. Each family received a number, and each of their movements were tracked. The government agents counted them like livestock

and gave food rations based on the obedience of the people. Traditional ceremonies were forbidden and dancing was seen as a rebellion. Crazy Horse kept to himself. He refused to travel east to meet politicians, declined to join delegations that posed for photographs, and turned away anyone who asked him to perform for visitors. His only wish was to lead his people back to the Black Hills. The sacred land promised to them in the Treaty of Fort Laramie.

But his silence unsettled the army. Soon, rumors spread that he planned to leave the reservation, that he would rise again in rebellion. None of it was true, but the fear was enough. In September 1877, General George Cook ordered Crazy Horse to be brought in for questioning. Crazy Horse was told it was just a meeting, but when he arrived at Camp Robinson, the military post guarding the Red Cloud Agency, and saw soldiers waiting with chains, he realized that they had lied. He resisted, and in the struggle, a soldier stabbed. him with a bayonet. Friends carried him to a nearby building, but he refused medical help. He died that night at about 37 years old. 37. Wow. Yeah. It's young. It is really young. His death was the final blow to the

Lakota resistance. The Black Hills were officially seized by the U.S. government the same year, despite treaty promises. For the Lakota, it was not merely the loss of land. It was the loss of a way of life. But Crazy Horse's name lived on, carried like a flame through generations. He became a symbol of defiance and dignity, a reminder that freedom was worth fighting for even when the fight could not be won. Decades passed, the Buffalo were slaughtered to near extinction, and reservations confined families to government rations. Children were sent to boarding schools with their haircut and their language beaten out of them. And high above the pines, Mount Rushmore towered over the lost land with the faces of the men who had taken everything.

In the 1930s, as Mount Rushmore's carvings neared completion, an Oglala Lakota leader named Chief Henry Standing Bear, Crazy Horse's cousin, decided his people needed a monument of their own. He had watched the faces of the presidents take shape on sacred ground and felt the sting of erasure. He said, The white man has his heroes carved in the Black Hills. The red man should have his two.

In 1939, Standing Bear wrote to Polish-American sculptor Korsak Zyofsky, who had once worked under Borglam. My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too, he told him. He offered Zyokovsky a mountain to carve a monument of Crazy Horse. It was Thunder Mountain, 17 miles from Mount Rushmore, and there was one condition. No government money was to be used. The project would be funded by the people with no help from the same government that had stolen the hills in the first place. The sculptor was moved by the offer and he agreed. On June 3rd, 1948, the first blast of dynamite thundered through the valley, marking the beginning of the Crazy Horse Memorial.

Zio Kovsky worked mostly alone in those early years. There were no paved roads, no electricity, only wooden steps, rope, and willpower. He envisioned a monument 563 feet high and 641 feet long, vast enough to fit all Mount Rushmore's presidents inside Crazy Horse's head and chest. His vision was immense. The warrior would sit on his horse, arm outstretched, pointing towards the land of his ancestors. When once asked by a white man, Where are your lands now? Crazy Horse had replied, My lands are where my dead lie buried. The sculptor sought to capture that defiance forever in stone.

The monument would serve to remember a man who had fought not for conquest, but for the right to live free on his own land. After the sculptor's death in 1982, his wife Ruth and their 10 children continued his work. Ruth made a practical decision. To finish Crazy Horse's face first, she hoped that progress would draw visitors and raise the money needed to complete the rest. In 1998, after 50 years of labor, the face was unveiled at 87 feet tall, 27 feet higher than any Mount Rushmore's president. One face took half a century of dedication, and the mountain today still waits to be shaped into the full image of the horse and rider. Today, the Crazy Horse Memorial remains privately funded through donations and ticket sales. At its base stands the Indian Museum of North America in the Native American Educational and Cultural Center.

where thousands of artifacts and artwork preserve the heritage that others tried to erase. The foundation also offers college scholarships to native students across the continent. Every year, more than a million people visit. Twice annually, the memorial hosts a night blast, where explosions of dynamite and fireworks illuminate the mountain, one on June 26th, honoring the anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn, and another on September 6th, the night Crazy Horse died. Some criticize the scale of the project. Others question whether Crazy Horse himself would have wanted a monument at all. He refused portraits in life. He sought humility, not glory. But many Lakota leaders see the mountain as a living reminder that their story did not end in 1877. It continues carved inch by inch, generation after generation. The Crazy Horse Memorial is not based on any photograph because there are none. It's an interpretation and embodiment of spirit rather than likeness. When completed, it will be the second largest monument in the world, surpassed only by India's statue of unity.

Yet even unfinished, it already stands as something greater than stone. Looking up from the valley below, the sight of that face emerging from the granite feels like a heartbeat returning to the mountain. It's not just the image of a man, it's the story of a people who refuse to disappear. The Black Hills remained sacred, and the legal battle over them continues. In 1980, more than a century after the government seized them, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the land had been taken illegally and awarded the Sioux Nation $106 million in compensation. The tribes refused the money, saying the Black Hills were never for sale. The settlement now sits in a government trust, accruing interest that has grown into more than

a billion dollars. Holy! And still remains untouched. For the Lakota, the issue is not wealth. justice. For them, you cannot sell the heart of their world. The contrast between Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse couldn't be sharper. On one mountain, four presidents gazed out over a land taken in their names. On another, a Lakota warrior points towards that same land as if reminding the world whose story came first. Each year, as Indigenous People's Day replaces Columbus Day on more calendars,

more communities are choosing to remember not the conquerors, but the voices that they silenced. It's a small step, but a powerful one. It's a shift in how nations decide what history deserves to be honored. It also continues the conversation about how Mount Rushmore should be used today. The Lakota people have protested its use for years, some arguing that it should be treated more like a Holocaust memorial than a bright celebration of American history. The Black Hills were never empty. They were taken.

The treaties were broken, the promises erased, but in Paha-Hasaapa, the heart of the world for the Lakota, the story is still being told. And if you stand there at the base of Thunderhead Mountain, as the light fades and the face of Crazy Horse glows in the setting sun, you can imagine him when he said, My lands are where my dead lie buried. And that is my story of the dark history of Mount Rushmore and remembering the indigenous communities with Crazy Horse. I think that that was like a top three episode of yours. Really? Yeah. Or in general, like National Park After Dark come out, like fully. Thank you. I really, really enjoyed that. And it was so moving. Like a couple times I teared up a little bit because it's just, I mean, it pulls on something deep. I think with everyone who is kind of going back to the beginning, my comments about re-examining and taking a closer look at what America was built on. And while there are really amazing parts of our history, there are equal, if not more, parts that are like this, that they're built on death and conquering other people and injustices and lying and trickery.

And just it's hard to face that, you know, and especially. seeing, you know, a lot of indigenous communities today, like fight so hard to, you know, raise awareness for that, that this, yes, it did happen. And that's one thing. But it also is still happening. And it's a fight that's very still, I don't know, just I feel like I'm rambling a lot this, uh, episode. But I think it's just, it was a really impactful episode. And I think it's such a perfect example of just something that we need to keep doing, and that's just re-examining what we've been fed our whole lives. And I think that this is actually also, I put this in our newsletter this month, but this is a perfect opportunity to shout this out

because we haven't talked about this formally on the podcast yet, although we have talked about it amongst ourselves and on our social media and stuff here and there. But in particular, I included an organization in our October newsletter that went out a couple weeks ago. It's usually the first week of the month that we send it out. And it is an organization called Save Our Signs. And I just want to briefly read what they're about because it's so fitting for the whole topic of what you just went over. And it says, save our signs celebrate all American history. The National Park Service is the nation's largest outdoor history class.

spanning 400 sites, the parks work tirelessly to fulfill their legal mandate to steward our nation's stories and make them accessible to all Americans. Real history is not just happy stories. The Secretary of the Interior has asked people to report signs in the parks that, quote, inappropriately disparage Americans past or living. This grows out of executive order 14-253, restoring truth insanity to American history, which seeks to erase quote-unquote negative stories. from public view. Content deemed inappropriate was ordered to be removed by September 17th of this

year, but we know that the process is ongoing, and some signs have already been removed. Join our effort to build a community archive of the signs, exhibits, and texts that could soon disappear from our national parks. We must act quickly to preserve all American stories. And then it goes on to outline how to do that. And essentially, it's asking you to if you're in a national park and you see signage that you think would be targeted by this executive order to take a picture and upload it to their database so that we can have like a living archive of these signs and exhibits that are at risk of being removed under this administration so that we don't lose them and that we can preserve what they say and hopefully bring them

back at some point once this executive order, hopefully later on it is overturned. But yeah, so it's a really cool organization. And it's all, it's run by librarians and public historians. Like, they co-founded this project. Wow. And I just think it's, I mean, it's a huge topic of conversation right now across the nation, but specifically within national parks. You know, this is outrageous. Yeah. And this is a perfect example. It's like, why history is important. Perfect example. Yeah, history is so important and it's not political either.

You know, I think that this is just something where we as Americans have a right to know about our heritage and our country and to know what has happened here, the full story. And it also does such a disservice to the people who were here before us and who are still here, their history as well, just because something is ugly. just because something is sad and bad doesn't mean that it should not be remembered. And I think part of the argument, when you look at Mount Rushmore, it's like, where do we go from here with Mount Rushmore? Because it's this huge imposing monument

that's overlooking, what do you do with it? And there's been a lot of conversations around that of giving the land back to the Lakota people. Or some people have been like, should it be removed? And I think that's not a decision for like you or I to make it. That would solely be in the hands of the people that it affects the most, I think, of the Lakota people who are there. But it is reexamining how we honor history, how we remember it, and making sure we remember every part of it. And I think that that is such a good

point of, I love that this project exists and that if our listeners could go out and if you see anything, because of course we know our listeners, we want to know all the dark. The dark stuff is the interesting stuff, you know, but we want to, we want to know what's there. And if you see stuff, send it in. Yeah. We'll put a link in the show description too. Yeah, for sure. So you can get to it quick. And I think, I mean, this is just perfect, again, because we have been to these places and in the same day, you know, a back-to-back experience. And like you said in, when you were telling the episode, you know, like the contrast couldn't be sharper. And we saw that in real time. And I think, you know, what is the answer? Of course, that's up for debate.

Do I foresee Mount Rushmore being demolished? No. No. I don't. I don't even know if I necessarily believe it should be. But that also is not my decision to make. You know, but, you know, it is a standing monument. of a really dark history. I think, I mean, because based on our experience, when we were there in, what, 2022? Yeah. I didn't learn any bit of this at Mount Rushmore. No. I mean, it was very much.

Yes, most of the stuff at Mount Rushmore. And there's like small nods to indigenous communities at Mount Rushmore. But when we were there, it was all about talking about the building and construction of Mount Rushmore itself. And like the sculptor and the. process of how it was creed. Who it did not say on the signs had ties to the KKK. Oh, absolutely not. That was conveniently omitted as well. Yeah. But yeah, I think that an approach that maybe would tow the line between both ends of this is just incorporating the truth in its entirety. And as we just said with the Save Our Science Project, we're going in the opposite direction of that, probably. But in a perfect world, at least, I don't know if perfect's the right word, but in a better world, all of this information would be made available at both places. And Crazy Horse is not managed by the government and they can do whatever they want.

And they're doing an amazing fantastic. Crazy Horse is one of the best places I have ever been. I agree. We've been all over the world. So that's saying something. And it was just so moving. It's scale is breathtaking. Like just physically visiting there and like gazing upon this giant, you know, accomplishment.

Of course, it goes so much deeper than that. And everything they're doing there with all of the museum and the education and the films we watched there. And we got to partake in an indigenous ceremonial dance when we were there. We got to watch. You know, I, you could buy. They had so many books on their history there. You know, it was just such a, you could feel how meaningful and special. that this place was in compare it. Mount Rushmore felt, um, oppressed. It felt really oppressive there.

It felt like it was lacking information. And you kind of walked up to it and you're like, oh, that's it. And then you go to Crazy Horse. And it's just such a different feeling being there, which is really, for me, was really interesting. Because before we had started planning our trips to South Dakota, I had never heard of Crazy Horse. And then we got there and it was like, wow, this is so impactful and it's in such a special and sacred place to a lot of people. And I just think that it is a place that deserves a lot more knowledge about. And I was looking at the comparison of visitors. So there's about two million people who visit every year to Mount Rushmore. And there's about one million who go to Crazy Horse. And when you look at that, one million is fantastic. But when you look that there's two million at Mount Rushmore and it's a 20 minute drive between the two places. There's a million people that could also be seeing Crazy Horse. And so if you have plans to go to Mount Rushmore, you should add Crazy Horse to your list because you need to see both sides of the history. Yeah, it's both sides of the

coin type of thing. I'm trying to remember, I don't think there is any, I mean, maybe I'm so wrong. And it's also been yours, so maybe it has changed. But I don't recall there being information about Crazy Horse at Mount Rushmore. Like, oh, you should also go see this. I can't say if there was or wasn't. I don't remember. But to be in all fairness, for us, we did not spend a lot of time there. We walked up to it. We walked through the museum. Oh, Mount Rushmore. Yeah. We didn't spend all that much time there because we had learned about Crazy Horse before. And we kind of walked around looking to see if they acknowledged the indigenous history and the lands. And we found that they really did. And we found that they really didn't. Like they had a couple artifacts of indigenous people there, but there wasn't really all

that much. And we're like, all right, let's go to a crazy horse and learn the real story. And we, and it didn't disappoint. Yeah. And yeah, I don't know. We could talk about this all day because it was just one of our favorite places we've ever been to. And it was so special and meaningful. And it's somewhere that I would love to revisit. And I don't really say that a ton. You know? I've been thinking about the bad lands a lot lately. Have you? The Black Hills and the Badlands have been on my mind a lot lately.

And I'm like, do I? Do I do it? Do I do it? When would you do it? The better question. Right now, probably. I just, yeah, it's just, you can tell that it's sacred land for a reason and that there's a lot of, there's a lot of very special energy there.

And it's beautiful. I mean, it's incredible. And the fact that I'm like, wow, we. could talk about this all day. We should stop. One more thing. And you touched upon it in your story. But the fact that they are just, and we learned about this when we were there. Also, there was like a short 15-minute film that we watched, you know, that just like runs in the museum. That we started off with. A crazy horse. That they are just not accepting of government funding in any way, shape, or form. even though they have access to it, it's been offered, it could have, the project could have been done by now. Yeah.

And that's, it's just, that's not the point. And I think in a world where money talks and is the loudest in the room and kind of overshadows and is just the deciding factor in so many aspects of life to see that over generations too, not just like, oh, this one group of people said no. and then, you know, a few decades later, things change and whatever maybe people consider it. No. It's just such a like, absolutely not. This is, you know, this is our thing and we're going to do it our way. And respectfully, no thank you. Yeah, we're not going to take money from the same government that tried to eradicate us. It's just such a badass move. To be honest. It's just, it's just so rad. I. And the fact that it's so much bigger than Mount Rushmore. I know. It's just like the biggest move.

I mean, it's a mic drop move. It is power move. It's like what are you going to make Mount Rush more bigger? You can't. You can't. Like you did your thing. Yeah. It is such a power move.

Such a power move. And the construction for crazy horse, I mean, they say that it could take another 50, 60 years to be completed because that's just how steadfast they are in only accepting donations and not through the government. And so the best way to really support them is to go and visit and to spend your money there. Yeah. And if you want to, you know, they accept donations online and things like that. And we're, you know, we mentioned last week that we're putting together a gift guide for outsiders for the holiday season. We're also, once that approaches, we're going to try and put together a little guide for donations, kind of like an online giving tree type of thing and highlight different organizations that we've talked.

about throughout episodes and just different projects that really, really rely on public donations to operate. And this will definitely be included. Like if you are interested in supporting. But the best way to do so is visit. Show your support not only in dollars, but in your presence. You know, it takes time and care to go somewhere and just showing up means a lot. Yeah. And just showing your willingness to learn. I mean, this has all been the history of what we thought was Mount Rushmore, at least for myself, and I'm sure I'm talking to a lot of people who feel the same way, has been ingrained in us as this patriotic symbol of being American. And it is a symbol, but it has a lot. Something for sure. And as you touched on before, critical thinking,

like encourage yourself to learn more about something, about anything. It doesn't even have to be necessarily just this. But if you're seeing some part of history that you're interested in, don't take it for what someone's telling you it is do the research find find out yourself there's a lot of we're going to bring you more and more information all the time because we love this stuff but there's a lot of history out there that is really um it's missed and not heard of as much and is just as important as the history you've learned yeah and i think kind of to wrap this up going back to the question of what what would we do if we had the decision which we don't but what what's the right thing to do with Mount Rushmore, given this information now?

Like if we were all on the same page and we're like, okay, so this is the full story, what do we do with this monument now? I think that the right thing to do is to just keep it as it is as a piece of that history because it's not about totally going now the opposite way and being like it's all about crazy horse and we should totally forget about Mountain Rushmore, obliterate it. We don't even want to think about it. Like it's important. It's important that it exists.

But it's important for us to know why it's there and how it became what it is today in its entirety. So it's not about saying screw Mount Rushmore and I don't think it should exist. I think that we should just know the whole thing. Yeah. And there are Lakota leaders that are calling for it to be turned into a memorial for the indigenous people who were murdered and massacred during the Great Sea War and other battles. Because that was, I mean, that was the land that they were fighting for is where Mount Rushmore is now standing. So a lot of leaders, not, and like you said, not to demolish Mount Rushmore, but to change the way that we honor that area. Instead of like glorifying it for something, for what we have been fed.

It's like, oh, maybe it's not so lovely. And also a call out to maybe we should change the name of Mount Rushmore back to its original. I mean, it's very widely acknowledged as the six grandfathers when you look at any history books and stuff. There's like a nod to this was what the Lakota people named it, but everyone knows it at Mount Rushmore. Yeah, especially there, like when you're visiting that area, the Badlands and the Black Hills, specifically, you'll see a lot of things referencing that. And I remember seeing that for the first time when we were there and not knowing what it was. referencing. Yeah, because you don't. Yeah. So maybe we should also change the name. But again, these are not decisions that are up to us. It's up to the people who have been wronged there,

who, however they feel that the land should be treated now, I think, is their right. And I hope that at some point we see, I don't know if that means the federal government giving over the national, because it's run by the National Park Service. So it's federal land now. So I don't know what that looks like, is it giving the land back? Is it making the indigenous communities there? The people who have the say over the land? You know, I think that there's, we're seeing a lot of national parks that are incorporating indigenous communities, but it's still in the early stages and is a work in progress. So I hope to see that there is something that can come together between the U.S. government and the indigenous communities that are there. We're, where the wrongs that have

have been committed are righted in a way that feels that feels like the right thing to do. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Again, there's not much more to say other than, well, there's so much more to say. But as far as our conversation goes here for this episode, like I said, it's a top episode. I loved it so much. So thought provoking, so moving. Very well done.

Thank you for sharing with us, especially on this day. I mean, congratulations to that. Like, thank you so much. And I know, like, it just lined up perfectly, you know, this year. So. Yeah. I saw it came out on Indigenous People's Day, also known as Columbus Day, which I didn't mention this, but also Columbus Day is still a federal holiday, which I think needs to be.

I know the federal government does acknowledge Indigenous People's Day now, but they don't have it as a federal government. And I think that Columbus Day should just be thrown out the window. A federal holiday, you mean? Yeah, a federal holiday. It's not. I didn't know that. Yeah.

It's a federal. Yeah. It's accepted that like because it's kind of taking hold that it was. Oh yeah. If you go on the Mount Rushmore website, it'll say federal holiday, Columbus Day, which I think is very ironic and should be changed. So hopefully that's something that we see in the future too because there's no reason to be celebrated. I still think you should get your day off from work. I'm not arguing against that.

It should be a federal holiday. You should get your day off from work. But let's not honor a rapist. a conqueror. Oh yeah. It says it's not yet an official holiday, though it has received annual presidential proclamations in recognizing it since 2021. Yeah. So it's very new. It should be switched to a federal holiday. And everyone should get the day off. And we should all remember stories like these ones. All right. Well, thank you everyone so much for joining us. And the next people are like, oh my God, okay, we know it's October. But this was important. Spooky season is fun.

And great and we love it. But like this was, this just takes precedence over. We have a lot of spooky stuff coming up. Next story weeks in a row, people. Next three weeks in a row. And the bonus story is creepier theme too. So it's coming. It's coming.

We hear you. We're out here. All right. Spooky season is here. Thank you, everyone. Enjoy the view. Or, well, what? Okay, sorry.

Wow. All right, everyone. We will see you next week. In the meantime, please enjoy the view. you. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark book club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available

on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our Ventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by.

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