Enriching The Future Through ‘Facing History’

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South Dakota is home to the world’s only two mountain carvings; Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial attract millions of visitors each year. Officials from those tourist attractions are now teaming up in hopes of increasing traffic at both sites.

The four Presidents are no doubt the Black Hills’ most famous faces, but just 17 miles away, there’s another mountain carving that represents the Native American heritage of the region. While you may think the tourist attractions compete for business, they’ve actually teamed up.

“Each of the memorials tells a part of history and both sides need to be told,” Ruth Ziolkowski at Crazy Horse said.

To help visitors learn both sides, staff members at Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse are handing out the same rack card, promoting both attractions, aptly titled ‘Facing History.’ The proximity and likeness of the sites made the collaboration an obvious choice.

“There are no other places in this country where there are two other memorials of this scale so close together,” Nav Singh at Mt. Rushmore said.

Around 3 million people come to see the famous faces each year; three times as many visitors than at Crazy Horse. Officials say this type of cross promotion will help increase traffic at both places.

“It’s going to help everybody because what’s the only thing that South Dakota has that nobody else has? That’s two mountain carvings. And that will help the entire state, it really will,” Ziolkowski said.

Helping attract more tourists to both mountains by reminding them of how close they are.