Standing Up for Sitting Bull
By Stephanie Smith | From Preservation | Sept. 6, 2007
Rendering of visitors center
Credit: Sitting Bull Monument Foundation
As a new arrival in Mobridge, S.D., Rhett Albers couldn't believe his eyes when a neighbor first showed him the Sitting Bull Monument just outside of town, on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
The granite bust, carved in 1953 by Korczak Ziolkowski (the late sculptor who famously toiled for nearly 40 years on a massive statue of Crazy Horse in the Black Hills, a work that remains unfinished), stood surrounded by trash, bottles, and old tires.
"It just didn't make sense," Albers says, "to have a man of this stature—a monument dedicated to Sitting Bull—treated like this."
Ironically, the sculpture was erected by businessmen and descendants of Sitting Bull who felt that the Sioux leader's gravesite in North Dakota had been poorly maintained. No plans for the memorial's long-term care ever materialized, and the neglected site became a favorite location for high-school keggers.
Albers, an environmental consulatant who works with area tribes, soon met Bryan Defender, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who was also concerned about the monument. Together they purchased the site, cleaned it up, and got it listed in the National Register of Historic Places. They have formed the Sitting Bull Monument Foundation to care for the site and are currently raising money to build a $12 million visitors center.
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