Then again, what he started was too big to complete in anyone's lifetime, as even the most industrious of dreamers run out of time before they run out of visions.
Ziolkowski, orphan, shipbuilder, assistant at the iconic Mount Rushmore, was the unlikely force behind what is now, 27 years after his death, shaping up to be an American icon to rival, even surpass, its more famous rock-face cousin 40 kilometres away.
When Ziolkowski died on the site in 1982 after 43 years of blasting and carving, the memorial still wasn't much of a temptation for tourists at least not compared to South Dakota's more famous Mount Rushmore or Badlands National Park.
That's about to change as Ziolkowski's dream, and the incredible tale of how it came to be, is literally set to dwarf all other sculptures.
Still working from Ziolkowski's 1948 design, the Crazy Horse Foundation -- it involves Ziolkowski's widow, Ruth, and seven of their 10 children -- is creating a landmark tourist attraction of immense proportions.
When completed, the sculpture will show legendary Lakota chief Crazy Horse, the native leader who was there when Gen. George Custer took his ill-fated ride at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, on his mount, galloping into the big Dakota sky, the sacred Black Hills at his feet.
Crazy Horse's face emerged from the mountainside in 1998.
To appreciate the scale of the project, consider that all four heads of the presidents of Mount Rushmore would fit inside the carving of Crazy Horse. When completed, the monument will be 172 metres high and 195 metres wide. It will be the world's largest mountain carving.
The Crazy Horse site now includes a sprawling visitors centre, Native American museum, artists workshop, a collection of early Americana a special wing dedicated to telling the story of the mountainside carving.
You can also take home a piece of rock blasted from the mountain for a small donation.
The interpretive centre, with the Crazy Horse memorial rising in the background, is the setting all summer long for a series of culture events.
Neither Ziolkowski nor the committee of chiefs who approached him at the Mount Rushmore worksite in the 1930s for the project were interested in accepting government money to help finance the project.
The project is financed by admission fees and donations. The site now attracts a million visitors annually.
