Hopes and Dreams

Centennial monument portraying the excitement of the 1893 Cherokee Strip land rush. It is one of several land run or state centennial monuments erected in Oklahoma in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Depicts a settler couple atop a wagon seat racing to claim land as part the 1893 Cherokee Strip land rush. The viewer can see the man holding the reins, but the horses and wagon are implied. The woman's sunbonnet has blown off her head and hangs down her back. The statue portrays action to capture the excitement of the rush to claim lands to which the Cherokee and other Native groups had been removed earlier in the 19th century.

The monument was sculpted by Bill Bennett, who grew up in Perry. It was erected in 1993 to mark the centennial of the land rush. Enid, Newkirk, and Ponca City, Oklahoma, also erected monuments marking that centennial.

Prescott, Cynthia Culver. Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory. Norman, Oklahoma. University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.

Swain, Joseph Benjamin Norris. "Claims to History: Commemorating Progress in Oklahoma Territory, 1989-2007." University of Oklahoma, 2008.