Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski fired the first blast at Thunderhead Mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota, United States, to begin carving the colossal Crazy Horse Memorial. Designed as an indigenous counterweight to Mount Rushmore, this ongoing project relies on precision mountain blasting to remove millions of tons of granite. The scale of the project exceeds any other mountain sculpture in human history, requiring specialized explosive engineering.

The blast at Crazy Horse introduced a complex dialogue in Western literature regarding the use of industrial, destructive technology to preserve indigenous memory. Native American poets have written nuanced pieces exploring the tension of using dynamite on sacred land to carve an icon of resistance.