Instructor

These two statues make up a bronze scene depicting a spring near a Native American trail used by both Native people and white settlers. "Stella at the Spring" depicts a young pioneer woman carrying a bucket. She looks toward "A Young Native American." He crouches on a rock overlooking the spring, extending his left hand. Both pieces sculpted by Mischell Riley. "A Young Native American" was dedicated in 2000. "Stella at the Spring" was dedicated in 2001. The scene was commissioned by the Advisory Committee of the Roger T. Sermon Fund for the Roger T. Sermon Community Center grounds.Near this installation stand a pioneer cabin and a "Trail of Death" memorial marking the Potawatomi (Neshnabe) people from their homelands in northern Indiana to this area in 1838.

Stella at the Spring and Native American Boy

Stella at the Spring and Young Native American marker

More Info

Two sculptures by Mischell Riley -- one depicting a young Native American man, and the other a young pioneer woman -- stand in front of the Roger T. Sermon Community Center. Nearby, a pioneer cabin and historical marker mark the location of an old spring used by both indigenous peoples and settlers. A Trail of Death memorial commemorates the forced removal of the Potawatomi (Neshnabe) people to this area in 1838.

Stella at the Spring and A Young Native American

Public sculptures that celebrate Independence's early white settlers and the town's role as a jumping-off point for the Oregon Trail.

Independence, Missouri, Pioneer Monuments

Visit pioneer-themed monuments throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area. The tour begins in Independence, Missouri, and ends in Olathe, Kansas.

Kansas City Metro Area Pioneer Monuments

Settler-themed public monuments stretching from Texas to Minnesota along I-35

Pioneer Monuments on Interstate 35 Travel Corridor

These two statues make up a bronze scene depicting a spring near a Native American trail used by both Native people and white settlers. "Stella at the Spring" depicts a young pioneer woman carrying a bucket. She looks toward "A Young Native American." He crouches on a rock overlooking the spring, extending his left hand. Both pieces sculpted by Mischell Riley. "A Young Native American" was dedicated in 2000. "Stella at the Spring" was dedicated in 2001. The scene was commissioned by the Advisory Committee of the Roger T. Sermon Fund for the Roger T. Sermon Community Center grounds. Near this installation stand a pioneer cabin and a "Trail of Death" memorial marking the Potawatomi (Neshnabe) people from their homelands in northern Indiana to this area in 1838.

Avard Tennyson Fairbanks sculpted the Old Oregon Trail medallion in 1924 while teaching art at the University of Oregon. It depicts the hardships that the artist's ancestors and nearly 500,000 others experienced while traveling westward on the overland trail by covered wagon in the mid-19th century.One 1852 migrant, Ezra Meeker, traveled back eastward along the trail in 1906 to seek the preservation of the Oregon Trail route. His efforts inspired Avard Fairbanks to sculpt a covered wagon drawn by oxen on the trail. In 1923 the Old Oregon Trail Association (OOTA) commissioned Fairbanks to design the organization's logo. That design was then cast as this 36-inch bronze medallion.The medallion depicts a man driving the team of oxen that pull the covered wagon over rocky terrain. His wife rides inside the wagon, holding their infant child. Fairbanks placed a pioneer mother and baby inside the wagon at the top and center of the design to commemorate his grandmother. But Fairbanks' depiction of the trail experience was shaped as much by popular culture at the time of its sculpting as by historical reality. In fact, women and children typically walked along beside the wagons to spare their teams, particularly on rough terrain.Fairbanks' depiction of trail life appears to have been influenced by W.H.D. Koerner's famous 1921 illustration Madonna of the Prairie. Koerner’s illustration was used as the cover image for Emerson Hough’s popular novel The Covered Wagon. Koerner’s instantly popular illustration portrayed the beautiful young heroine seated on a wagon box with the opening of the wagon cover forming a halo around her face. Koerner’s illustrations inspired the costuming for a silent film adaptation of Hough’s novel, which became the first western “epic” film. In the year before The Covered Wagon movie was released, only fifty identifiable western films had been made; in the year following its release, 150 westerns were made – and the industry maintained that level of production until it was eclipsed by television in the 1950s. Adaptations of Koerner’s covered wagon imagery pervaded the massive advertising for the movie. This gave Madonna of the Prairie a significant role in shaping public perceptions of settler women. It also appears to have shaped Avard Fairbanks’ conception of pioneer women in this medallion and in other pioneer monuments that he sculpted over the next 50 years.The OOTA originally planned to use Fairbanks' Fairbanks’ design to mark the Oregon Trail route from Independence, Missouri, to Seaside, Oregon. An Old Oregon Trail medallion was soon cast in bronze and installed in historic Broadway Bridge in Seaside, near a Fairbanks medallion depicting the Lewis and Clark Salt Works. A copy of that medallion was placed in this Oregon Trail monument in Baker City, Oregon, the hometown of OOTA founder Walter Meacham. Fairbanks also reproduced the scene, renamed The Pioneer Mothers, for installation on the reverse of his 1928 Pioneer Mother statue for Vancouver, Washington.Fairbanks' covered wagon design also was selected to print on a series of metal signs marking the Oregon Trail route. The states of Oregon and Idaho both ordered copies of the markers. But these smaller highway signs were not durable enough for highway use, and apparently were never installed.In more recent years, Fairbanks' descendants have recast Old Oregon Trail for various sites along the Oregon Trail. The artist’s son, David Fairbanks, donated this casting of the medallion to the Independence-based Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA). Two decades later, the OCTA and Jackson County, Missouri, installed the medallion on the lawn of the Historic Truman Courthouse on June 7, 2016. It was placed on the reverse of a stone marker first installed in 1948 marking the starting point of the Oregon Trail. The medallion's dedication ceremony also honored the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.

Avard Fairbanks sculpted this covered wagon scene in 1924. Plans to use Fairbanks' image to mark the route of the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri, to Seaside, Oregon, floundered in the 1920s, resulting in only two markers in Oregon. But in the 21st century, Fairbanks' descendants have worked to erect additional castings of the bronze medallion, including this one in the jumping-off point of Independence. The medallion was installed on a stone marker first installed in 1948.

Old Oregon Trail medallion (Independence, Missouri)

A
Pioneer Woman statue by Mexican
sculptor Juan Lombardo-Rivera was placed in the courtyard of the National
Frontier Trails Museum when it opened in 1990. In 2013 that sculpture was
stolen from the museum. The thieves took apart the statue and tried to sell it
for scrap. It was replaced by this statue by local artist Charles Goslin in
2016. The new sculpture closely resembles the original statue, but with some
important differences.

A
Pioneer Woman statue by Mexican
sculptor Juan Lombardo-Rivera was placed in the courtyard of the National
Frontier Trails Museum when it opened in 1990. It symbolized the hope and grit
of women who migrated west along the overland trails in the mid-19th
century. It also honored women who pioneered in other ways, breaking gender
barriers in recent decades. 

Lombardo-Rivera’s
statue was modeled after a local teenager, Theresa Brown. The life-sized bronze
statue depicted a woman wearing a blue dress and sunbonnet. She carried a baby
in one arm and a bucket in the other.

At
the time, some on the statue fundraising committee feared that the blue patina
that the Mexican artist applied to the statue was too vivid. But once it was
installed in the courtyard, Independence residents soon warmed to the work. 

In
2013 vandals stole the $35,000 Pioneer
Woman statue, broke it to pieces and tried to sell it for scrap metal worth
about $600. The Kansas City recycler recognized the bronze pieces as artwork and
refused to accept them for recycling. The three vandals were caught and
convicted. Two were sent to prison, and one was given probation. The remains of
the Lombardo-Rivera statue were not recovered. But a smaller model of the
original statue remains inside the museum.

The
city of Independence raised nearly $40,000 in private donations to replace the
statue. The selection committee chose a new Pioneer
Woman sculpture by local artist Charles Goslin that closely resembles the
stolen statue. Both sculptors depicted determined young women gazing into the
distance, with the wind blowing their long prairie-style dresses. The new statue was installed in January 2017.

Nonetheless,
minor differences between the two sculptures reveal changing gender ideals. The
new statue emphasizes the frontier mother’s nurturing role over her labor. Instead
of carrying an empty bucket, the new Pioneer
Woman cradles her baby with both arms. Whereas Lombardo-Rivera’s tiny
infant faced out toward the viewer, Goslin depicted a somewhat older child
gazing up at its mother’s face.&nbsp; The
Mexican artist celebrated women’s hard work, wearing rolled-up sleeves and
carrying a bucket. In contrast, the local artist’s new version keeps her arms covered
in long sleeves. She does not hold any tools or do any productive work. 

Charles
Goslin’s design for the 2016&nbsp;Pioneer Woman
closely resembles another bronze pioneer mother and child that Goslin
sculpted a decade earlier for a life-sized sculpture to accompany a stone wagon train relief in Pioneer Crossing Park in nearby Shawnee, Kansas. (Today, both Independence, Missouri, and Shawnee,
Kansas, are suburbs of Kansas City.) Both Goslin pioneer mothers wear long dresses
and carry young children as they walk westward. But the Shawnee pioneer woman
also wears a child gazes forward, echoing its mother’s westward focus, rather
than gazing up at her face. Goslin added blue patina to the Shawnee woman and child,
as Juan Lombardo-Rivera did with the first Independence monument. That Goslin
chose not to apply any color to the new bronze pioneer mother for Independence suggests
that the local artist sought to avoid a controversy like that surrounding the
earlier version. Or perhaps Goslin felt a patina was not necessary to make the
statue stand out in its new, more secure location near the entrance to the
National Frontier Trails Museum.

A "Pioneer Woman" statue by Mexican sculptor Juan Lombardo-Rivera was placed in the courtyard of the National Frontier Trails Museum when it opened in 1990. In 2013 that sculpture was stolen from the museum. The thieves took apart the statue and tried to sell it for scrap. It was replaced by this statue by local artist Charles Goslin in 2016.

Pioneer Woman statue (National Frontier Trails Museum)

Francois' uncle, Auguste Chouteau, departed Fort Chartres, Illinois, in 1764 at age fourteen and traversed the Missouri River. He, along with thirty men, stopped in modern-day St. Louis. Chouteau later partnered with John Jacob Astor to create what became the American Fur Company. The American Fur Company matured into the largest and most successful fur company in the nation. Indeed, when Astor retired from the business in 1834, he invested his money in land and buildings in New York, becoming the wealthiest person in the United States. (His great-grandson, John Jacob Astor IV, one of the richest people in the world in his life, died during the famous sinking of the Titanic.) Meanwhile, though not nearly as wealthy, Auguste Chouteau went on to serve as a Justice of the Peace, become a bank president, build a fort, serve as a militia colonel, and work as one of three commissioners to make treaties with the Native Americans who had fought on the side of the British in the War of 1812. Meanwhile, Francois' father, and Auguste's brother, Jean Pierre Chouteau, established several trading posts in the Indian country, including on the upper Osage River in southwestern Missouri. Soon after the Louisiana Purchase, he moved permanently to St. Louis, where he died in 1849. However, Francois and his two brothers, Frederick and Cyprien, received a license to trade with Native Americans west of the Missouri River. Consequently, they also established trading posts. In 1819, Francois Chouteau and his cousin established a temporary trading post for the American Fur Company on the Randolph Bluffs along the Missouri River in western Missouri. Francois and his wife, Bérénice, along with Cyprien, moved the post a few miles (located near the north end of present-day Grand Avenue), which became the area's first permanent European-American settlement in 1821. Francois, Cyprien, and several trappers partnered to create a fur business in 1825. The fur company focused on western trading routes; Francois Chouteau traveled throughout the Kansas Territory, trading with various Native American nations. Meanwhile, Francois' brothers, Frederick and Cyprian, also built trading houses about five miles north of today's Kansas City, where they traded with the Shawnee and Delaware Indians. A little later, another post was established farther up the river. Additionally, Frederick Chouteau was married four times, twice to Native American women.By 1828, Francois and Bérénice ostensibly established a permanent residency in the area that would become Kansas City. They built a home on the bluffs above the Missouri River and actively participated in developing the town, which existed mainly as a French community. Indeed, in 1835, a resident constructed a log cabin church attended by several members of the Chouteau family so that it became known as Chouteau's Church." François Chouteau earned the nickname "Founder of Kansas City," but he died at the young age of forty-one. His widow, Bérénice, remained active in the church, community, and family trading business, garnering her the name "Mother of Kansas City." While Francois and Bérénice enjoyed an arguably affectionate relationship with the local Indian population, the overall presence of settlers marked the end of Native Americans living in Missouri. For instance, an 1808 treaty required the Osage, the most powerful tribe throughout today's Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, to give up most of their land in the southern Missouri Territory. (Although, unlike many Native American nations, the Osage made money in the process and gained access to Oklahoma lands that possessed oil, which benefited them economically during the twentieth century.) By the 1830s, the white population pushed the vast majority of Native Americans out of Missouri. So, while the genesis of Kansas City dates back to the fur-trading relationship, Native Americans in the area can point to it as the end of their time in Missouri. Still, the Kansas City artist Kwan Wu's sculptures serve as a memory of the many interactions between the Chouteau family and countless Native Americans. Moreover, it speaks to a meaningful aspect of American history: the fur trade. But, more than just trade, the Chouteau family and local Native Americans interacted with each other in numerous ways. For example, when a significant cholera outbreak occurred in 1827, Berenice sewed shrouds for both white settlers and Native Americans that died (including using her wedding gown as fabric); she also lost two of her children during the outbreak. In the process, she established strong bonds with the Seminole, Osage, and other nearby tribes. When completed, the fountain will involve water flowing over limestone river rocks with mist jets providing a gentle fog over the "river." Three statues are portrayed as traders sitting atop a Missouri River bluff while another Native American trapper stalks his prey. Shortly after the statue of "The Osage Woman" was installed in 2021, it was stolen and disassembled; the thieves attempted to sell it for scrap. The statue pieces were recovered. A conservator in Reading, Kansas, welded the pieces back together, and "The Osage Woman" was reinstalled the following year.

Development of the François Chouteau &amp; Native American Heritage Fountain coincided with the 2021 Kansas City bicentennial. Francois and many members of the Chouteau family were early French traders and trappers who operated west of St. Louis during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Francois established a trading post and residency in what would become modern-day Kansas City, and his wife became known by some as "the Mother of Kansas City." The fountain and park commemorate Native Americans who predated the French trader along with the new arrivals of European descent. While the fountain was designed to celebrate Native peoples and settlers alike, it is important to note that the arrival of European settlers set in place a series of events that culminated with tens of thousands of Native Americans in Missouri and eastern Kansas being in a position where they were forced from the area. Starting with treaties and missions in the 1830s, the establishment of the Town of Kansas, the eventual creation of Kansas Territory and the growth of Kansas City, the arrival of French traders started a process that had occurred in St. Louis and other former "frontier" communities. At the same time, it appears the Chouteau family enjoyed a friendly relationship with Native Americans based on trade.

François Chouteau & Native American Heritage Fountain

Prominent western American artist Alexander Phimister
Proctor sculpted this larger-than-life bronze grouping. It was one of the
most prominent works of the Pioneer Mother Movement (1925-1940). But public
interest in the statue soon waned. Today, it is largely ignored by Kansas City
residents. Yet the city refuses to give the statue to the village of Westport, which claims to be Kansas City's birthplace. 

For many years, Phimister Proctor wanted to create a
monument to female pioneers. That desire remained unformed until 1922, when he
viewed WHD Koerner’s Madonna of the
Prairie. Koerner’s instantly popular illustration
portrayed the beautiful young heroine of Emerson Hough’s popular novel&nbsp;The
Covered Wagon seated on a wagon box with the opening of the wagon cover
forming a halo around her face. Like Koerner, Proctor was determined not to
show a pioneer woman “plodding westward in a calico dress,” as many
pioneer monuments of that era did. Instead, Proctor depicted “another, no less
heroic side."1&nbsp;Proctor
placed his Prairie Madonna on horseback. She rides side-saddle with her baby in
her lap and her sunbonnet hanging down her back. Her buckskin-clad husband, a
grizzled mountain man guide, and a pack mule accompany her.&nbsp; 

Proctor drew on ancient scripture, Renaissance
imagery, mid-19th-century painting, and early 20th-century
illustration in his sculpture. Proctor adapted maternal imagery from George
Caleb Bingham’s famous 1851 painting Daniel
Boone Escorting Settlers Through the Cumberland Gap. Bingham’s famous
painting used the Renaissance image of Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt to
show American westward migration. The painter placed the Madonna on horseback at
the top of the grouping’s triangular shape. Proctor adapted this pyramidal
structure in his sculpture. By so doing, Proctor likened Pioneer Mothers to the
Virgin Mary. This emphasized the Pioneer Mother’s role in bringing white civilization
to supposedly savage Indian lands. To show his Prairie Madonna’s self-sacrifice
in migrating westward, Proctor encircled his larger-than-life bronze grouping
with a text from the Book of Ruth: “Whither thou goest I will go.&nbsp;Thy people shall be my people and thy God my
God.” Despite these varied cultural influences, Proctor was convinced that his
monument authentically depicted the spirit of frontier women who followed their
pioneer husbands westward.

Phimister Proctor prided himself on the authenticity
of his western-themed sculptures.&nbsp; Like
other leading western artists like Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell,
Proctor clung to a fantasy of authenticity. Yet their work was heavily
influenced by mythology and historical memory.&nbsp;
For example, to work on the Kansas City Pioneer Mother, Proctor moved his family from Palo Alto to southern
California. Proctor he was “[c]ertain that western characters would be easier
to find in Hollywood than anywhere else”2—even
though authentic frontier conditions persisted in the northern Great Plains at
the time.&nbsp; In Hollywood, Proctor soon
selected “an old bewhiskered gentleman” to pose for the westering family’s
trapper guide who had recently completed work as a body double for Ernest
Torrence in the film adaptation of The
Covered Wagon.&nbsp;Similarly, the young woman Proctor chose to
represent the pioneer mother in the Kansas City monument wore a costume of
questionable historical accuracy sewn by the artist’s wife. The model sat on a side-saddle given to the
artist by a woman who claimed--rather unconvincingly--to have ridden across the
Plains on it as a bride in 1852.

Kansas City businessman Howard Vanderslice sought to
honor his own mother and other pioneers by commissioning the pioneer woman
memorial that Proctor envisioned. The $250,000 cost ($3.4 million in 2015
dollars) was so exorbitant that Vanderslice kept it out of the newspapers.

The nearby village of Westport claimed to having
birthed Kansas City.&nbsp;Westport residents
believed that Proctor’s statue belonged in their community, instead. Westport business leaders and the Daughters of Old Westport urged Kansas City’s
Park Board to place the massive sculptural group on a tiny trolley island at
the heart of Westport’s business district that had been the site of their
original town. They insisted that Westport site's location on the old Santa Fe
Trail (which was built for commercial traffic to Hispanic New Mexico, rather
than Yankee overland migration) made it the most suitable location for
Proctor's sculpture of a westering Yankee family.&nbsp;In the end, though, the artist’s and donor’s preference for the statue to stand
on a hilltop in Kansas City’s Penn Valley Park prevailed.

Newspaper coverage of the monument was extremely
enthusiastic.&nbsp; Several local residents agreed
that “’This is the only kind of statuary worth a d--n.”3&nbsp;Nearly 30,000 reportedly attended its 1927
dedication.&nbsp;Like
Pioneer Mother monuments in other western cities, though, interest in the
statue quickly waned. 

By the 1980s, residents and city leaders had chosen
to forget the statue that glorified westward expansion and depicted women as
meekly submitting to their husbands. But Westport merchants once again sought
to claim Proctor’s statue for their business district.&nbsp; Advertiser Tom Tupper declared that the
“gigantic statue” was only viewed “by about 16 people a year--if they can find
it.”4&nbsp;Instead, the Westport businessmen proposed to
move it to Heritage Park to commemorate Westport’s 150th anniversary.
They argued it would also commemorate a Westport resident and civic volunteer
who was among the 114 killed when the skywalk of Kansas City’s Hyatt Regency
hotel collapsed near Proctor’s Pioneer
Mother monument in 1981. Tupper suggested that private donations to that
victim’s memorial fund should cover the estimated $50,000 cost to move the
statue. Westport’s business and political leaders endorsed the plan. But the
Kansas City Parks and Recreation Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to
leave the statue where Proctor had placed it a half-century earlier,
overlooking downtown Kansas City.

The Kansas City park board was determined to keep the
statue, but not to maintain it. By 2007, the Kansas City Star decried the “embarrassing weedy mess” that
surrounded the “icon of KC's frontier past,” opining that it “should be a place
for peaceful contemplation and beauty.”5 Tellingly, city officials only
discovered the neglect of the statue while surveying potential light-rail
routes through the park. Local residents who visit the park regularly remain
unaware of its existence.

1927 statue by famed western artist A. Phimister Proctor. Modeled after artist's own mother to honor women who migrated West on the overland trails in the mid-19th century. The monument was celebrated at its dedication, but soon forgotten. The nearby village of Westport sought to claim the statue in the 1980s. Westport claims to be the birthplace of Kansas City.

Pioneer Mother statue (Kansas City, MO)

Sculptor Cyrus Dallin was strongly influenced by the art and culture of Native American tribes in his native state of Utah. Prior to creating this statue, he created several other works that sought to capture the dignity and unique cultures of those tribes. In 1912, city leaders tried to raise funds to purchase a similar sculpture by Dallin. That statue, titled "Appeal to the Great Spirit," was on display at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and citizens of Boston raised the $12,000 needed to keep the statue in their city before fundraising efforts in Kansas City could reach the required amount. Kansas City's Margaret Coburn had written letters in support of acquiring Coburn's statue in 1912, and she once again led efforts to acquire The Scout in 1916. Working with her father, banker James Coburn, they invited Cyrus Dallin to dinner and told them their hope to bring the Scout to Kansas City as a way of improving their odds of raising funds. Dallin approved the idea, and the statue was first displayed at 15th and Paseo, then a prominent location. The statue was then moved to Penn Valley Park, an idea that Margaret Coburn had back in 1912. In August 1916, Chief Little Bull, the son of the famous Sioux leader Sitting Bull, visited Kansas City and commented favorably about the authenticity of the artist's design. Dallin spent many years sketching Native Americans prior to making the statue, including many who were part of Buffalo Bill's touring show. Many residents of Kansas City supported the effort to raise funds, but after several months, the Chamber of Commerce still had less than half of the needed amount. News that the Smithsonian was considering purchasing the statue inspired Ida Nelson, wife of publisher William Rockhill Nelson, to donate $1000 to the effort if the community could raise the remaining amount in two months. Two days later, the fundraising effort had reached its goal thanks to efforts by school children who collected dimes and nickels alongside larger donations from organizations and leading philanthropists. After the successful fundraising effort to purchase this statue, it quickly became one of the symbols of the city. City National Bank and Trust (UMB Bank today) added the Scout to its logo in the Great Depression. When a National Hockey League franchise was awarded to the city, the team was known as the Kansas City Scouts during their short tenure in the mid-1970s.The statue has remained close to its original location over the past century, being placed between Penn Valley Park's lake and Summit Street. In 1921, the statue was moved around three hundred feet south, making its vantage point another 25 feet higher and offering a better view of the growing city. Although its base has changed, the statue has been vandalized and repaired numerous times. The first instance of vandalism occurred sometime in 1917, shortly after the statue made its Kansas City debut. The Kansas City Star reported the news that the arrow and bow had been stolen and placed the action in historical context: "Perhaps he [the vandal] thought the Sioux could not completely typify the American Indian until he bore the scars of the white man’s vandalism,' the 1917 article editorialized.Acts of vandalism occurred throughout the 1920s, and despite efforts to discourage people from carving their initials into the side of the horse, this became a regular occurrence. By the 1930s, many considered moving the statue from the park to City Hall to prevent vandalism. The Parks Department regularly replaced missing portions of the statue, and there were numerous debates about moving the sculpture to a well-trafficked part of the city. In 1960, R. Crosby Kemper funded the construction of the stone pedestal base. The eight-foot base placed the bronze portion of the statue beyond the reach of ordinary vandals. As a visitor in the modern era will attest, the vandalism of the Scout's first decades has continued, with graffiti at the base being removed by the Parks Department at regular intervals.

Sculptor Cyrus Dallin displayed this sixteen-foot bronze statue of a mounted Sioux Indian at San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. The sculpture was awarded the gold medal, leading to a cross-country tour of temporary installations that included Kansas City in 1916. In response to the statue's popularity, local newspaper editorials called for action, noting that the touring statue was for sale with a listed price of $15,000. Seventeen area organizations led efforts to raise funds, and local teachers worked with area school children to collect small donations, including nickels and dimes. Collectively, the efforts raised the needed funds to purchase and permanently display the sculpture. The effort was successful, with area residents contributing enough to purchase the statue and place it in Penn Valley Park. The Scout has been one of the symbols of Kansas City since its public dedication in 1922.

The Scout

To mark the 1912 centennial of the Santa Fe Trail, a group
of Westport businessmen formed the Westport Improvement Association. The
Improvement Association sought to install a monument to that trail in Westport,
Missouri. The men worked with the Kansas City Historical Society, the Daughters
of the American Revolution, the Daughters of the Confederacy, other
genealogical organizations, and the National Old Trails Road Association to raise
money for a Pioneer Monument Fund. Together these voluntary organizations hosted
a Santa Fe Trail and Battle of Westport Reunion and Carnival. They envisioned a
life-sized stone sculpture including five yoke of oxen and a “prairie schooner with
wagon-master and bull-whackers and the faithful dog in the rear.”1 They planned to install it at the site of the City Hall of Westport,
which stood on the Santa Fe Trail route.

Plans for a stone sculpture depicting commercial traffic
over the Santa Fe Trail soon faded. But while the other organizations involved
in the centennial event soon turned toward other projects, the Daughters of Old
Westport were determined to erect a pioneer monument in their community. &nbsp;

The Daughters of Old Westport was a group of neighborhood
women descended from the earliest settlers of the town. They ran a doll booth
to raise money for a carnival at the Westport reunion. Their $181 in profit became
the start of an eight-year fundraising campaign. 

Instead of a life-sized stone sculpture, the Daughters of
Old Westport settled on a more modest design. It was&nbsp;similar to those erected by the
Daughters of the American Revolution in this era. The Westport women installed
two bronze bas relief plaques on a large boulder, which they placed in the
heart of Westport’s historic business district.

Instead of celebrating the men who hauled goods between
Missouri and New Mexico, the Daughters of Old Westport commemorated the first
women who settled in their town. Sculptor
Merrell Gage’s central bas relief depicts a white mother with her two young
children. She holds a rifle to defend her children against wild animals and the
Native Americans these white settlers displaced. Text in the upper right corner
dedicates it “To the Pioneer Mother.” 

On the back of
the boulder, an accompanying dedication plaque features a male trapper and
American Indian reminiscent of those that appeared in earlier pioneer monuments
elsewhere in the American West. The Daughters of Old Westport Memorial was one
of the first monuments to pioneer women erected in the United States. Dozens
more would follow later in the 1920s.

Westport businessmen wanted to put up a life-sized stone wagon train to mark the centennial of the Santa Fe Trail. Instead, local women raised the funds for this 1920 tribute "To the Pioneer Mother." It was one of the first pioneer mother monuments erected in the United States.

Daughters of Old Westport Memorial

Westport business leaders wanted commemorate the town's
connections to the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail, and its claim to being the
birthplace of Kansas City. After several failed attempts and smaller markers,
they finally put up this statue in 1986. The tribute to John C. McCoy, Alexander Majors, and Jim Bridger is the
culmination of 75 years of pioneer commemoration efforts by Westport business
leaders and residents.

Westport is extremely proud of its role in white westward
expansion. It was established by fur trader John Calvin McCoy in 1833. Westport
served as an eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail, which carried American
freight to Mexico, during the 1830s. Westport then served as an outfitting
location for the Oregon and California trails in the 1840s and 1850s. Its
population peaked in 1858 at about 2,000. McCoy, along with thirteen investors, also founded the Town of Kansas at
a nearby riverboat landing site. After the Civil War, that town grew
dramatically, changing its name to Kansas City. By 1897 Kansas City had annexed
the village of Westport that it had eclipsed. But throughout the 20th century, Westport
residents insisted that Westport should receive credit as Kansas City’s
birthplace.

To mark the 1912 centennial of the Santa Fe Trail, a group
of Westport businessmen formed the Westport Improvement Association. The
Improvement Association sought to install a monument to that trail in Westport,
Missouri. The men worked with the Kansas City Historical Society, the Daughters
of the American Revolution, the Daughters of the Confederacy, other
genealogical organizations, and the National Old Trails Road Association to raise
money for a Pioneer Monument Fund. Together these voluntary organizations hosted
a Santa Fe Trail and Battle of Westport Reunion and Carnival. They envisioned a
life-sized stone sculpture including five yoke of oxen and a “prairie schooner with
wagon-master and bull-whackers and the faithful dog in the rear.”1 They
planned to install it at the site of the City Hall of Westport, which stood on
the Santa Fe Trail route.

That life-sized stone monument to commercial traffic on the
Santa Fe Trail never came to be. Instead, the Daughters of Old Westport took up
the project, transforming it into a memorial to pioneer mothers. The 1920
bronze plaque was placed on a large boulder in the historic downtown area.

When businessman Howard Vanderslice commissioned a Pioneer Mother monument for Kansas City
a few years later, Westport leaders argued that it should instead be placed in
Westport. The artist and donor insisted that the larger-than-life bronze
sculpture of a pioneer mother on horseback, her husband, a mountain man guide,
and pack horse be placed in Penn Valley Park overlooking downtown Kansas City, instead.

In 1950, as Kansas City prepared to celebrate its
centennial, Westport formed its own historical organization. That new Westport
Historical Society placed an ox-yoke marker on a traffic island to mark the
location of the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trail.

To mark Westport’s 150th anniversary, village merchants
led by advertising agent Tom Tupper once again sought to claim Kansas City’s bronze
Pioneer Mother statue in 1984. The
Westport Tomorrow organization argued that the famous statue had been ignored
by Kansas City residents for decades in the vast Penn Valley Park. Tupper
declared that the “gigantic statue” was only viewed “by about 16 people a year--if
they can find it.”2&nbsp;Westport businessmen argued that it would be
more visible in their Heritage Park. They sought to move it in memory of a
Westport resident and civic volunteer who had been among the 114 killed when
the skywalk of Kansas City’s Hyatt Regency hotel collapsed near the Pioneer Mother monument in 1981. Tupper suggested
that private donations to that victim’s memorial fund should cover the
estimated $50,000 cost to move the statue. Westport’s business and political
leaders endorsed the plan, but the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Board of
Commissioners voted unanimously to leave the statue in Penn Valley Park.

Many Westport residents believed a new monument would
attract visitors to the district’s shops and restaurants. Historian and
Westport Historical Society archivist Fred L. Lee insisted that “The eventual
goal of that statuary is to promote tourism.”3 But what form should
Westport’s new statue take?

Residents expressed competing visions for a new sculpture on
the former trolley island. A small group seeking to commemorate prominent
artist and former Westport resident Thomas Hart Benton raised $100,000 in
private donations to place a Benton statue in that location. But Westport
Historical Society members and other local western heritage societies remained
committed to commemorating Westport’s mid-19th-century heyday. Kansas City Park
Board President L. P. Cookingham, who was also a historical society member, finally
brokered a compromise. He recommended a different location for the Benton
statue, which cleared a path for erecting a monument to Westport founder John
C. McCoy and Westport’s frontier past on the triangular traffic island.

The pioneer statue by Kansas City artist Thomas L. Beard declared
Westport’s centrality to United States westward expansion by commemorating
famous businessmen with ties to the area. The pioneer statue featured three
prominent white businessmen with connections to mid-19th-century Westport: fur
trader and Westport founder John C. McCoy, Westport businessman and co-founder
of the Pony Express Alexander Majors, and western merchant and mountain man Jim
Bridger, who retired to Westport in the 1850s.&nbsp;


Bridger’s fringed buckskin coat and rifle mark him as a
rugged frontiersman. An accompanying plaque identifies him as “an Indian
fighter, fur trapper and trader, guide to the Far West, U.S. Army scout and
explorer.” He sits slightly behind McCoy, listening intently to the fur
trader-turned-businessman. In contrast, Majors’ upright posture, long coat and
the top hat identify him as a successful businessman, but his informal work
shirt reminds viewers of his earlier years hauling freight on the Santa Fe
Trail. He gazes off into the distance, indicating his focus on future
opportunities further west. Central character John C. McCoy is dressed formally
in a three-piece suit. His identifying plaque calls the surveyor “the father of
Kansas City” and declares “But always, he was a realtor and a builder.” Although
the three men were contemporaries, Thomas Beard’s sculpture teaches that
Bridger and Majors prepared the way for McCoy, just as white frontiersmen and
traders—and the village of Westport—paved the road to urban development in
Kansas City and throughout the West.

This 1986 tribute to John C. McCoy, Alexander Majors, and Jim Bridger is the culmination of 75 years of pioneer commemoration efforts by Westport business leaders and residents.

Pioneer Square Monument

This statue sculpted by L. E. “Gus”
Shafer is a larger-than-life depiction of a wagon train leader. It is one of several monuments in the Kansas City area that commemorate the region's connections to the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails during the mid-19th century.The artist used
his own face as a model for this sculpture. The bronze statue stands on a large limestone rock. It
was a gift from Catherine and Miller Nichols, their four daughters, and the
artist. &nbsp;It was dedicated on September 8,
1973.

A plaque accompanying the statue reads:

<blockquote>"God slumbers in the rock He
breaths in the plant He dreams in the animal He awakens in man. – An Indian
proverb." </blockquote>

Other nearby bronze plaques
recount the history of the Santa Fe Trail and the Civil War Battle of Westport
that happened nearby.

Bronze sculpture of a wagon train leader sculpted by Gus Shafer. It is one of several monuments in the Kansas City area that commemorate the region's connections to the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails during the mid-19th century.



Wagon Master statue

In the 1920s, Kansas City joined other prominent western American cities in erecting monuments to pioneers, with a special emphasis on pioneer women who were depicted as mothers who helped convert the wildness of what was viewed as frontier with civilization, stability, and familial values. After World War II, larger cities moved away from this trend while smaller communities in the West, including suburbs, turned to local artists who continued to create monuments to pioneers as part of their effort to claim a unique history. Those local artists increasingly depicted nuclear families rather than solo white women. Residents of Prairie Village, Kansas selected this sculpture of a strong father, a submissive mother, and a young baby, for the town’s new shopping center. Real estate developer J. C. Nichols Co. sponsored a contest at the Kansas City Art Institute for an original sculpture for its new Prairie Village Shopping Center. Six students entered, and Prairiie Village residents voted for their favorite. The winning design was “Homesteaders” by Anna Belle Campbell. It took nearly a year for Campbell and her friend—and later husband—Joe Cartwright to complete the 12-foot-tall statue. It was cast in stone and marble by Ornamental Casterworks in Kansas City. The completed sculpture was dedicated in June 1952. The sculptor knew little about frontier clothing and wagon wheels when she designed the “Homesteaders” statue. But her interest in local history persisted, and she later became the curator at the National Frontier Trails Center in nearby Independence, Missouri. When Highwoods Properties purchased the J. C. Nichols Company in 1999, the statue was donated to the city of Prairie Village. It was placed on a fountain to mark the city’s entrance in 2002.

Dedicated in 1952, this statue was purchased by J. C. Nichols Company and originally placed at the entrance to the Prairie Village Shopping Center as part of an effort to build a connection between the postwar Kansas City suburb and the area's pioneer history. The statue was later moved and placed within a fountain at the entrance to the town in 2002.

The Homesteaders statue

This park was created as a
sesquicentennial project for the town of Shawnee in 2006. It commemorates
Shawnee’s place on the mid-19th-century Santa Fe, Oregon, and
California wagon trails and Fort Leavenworth Military Road. It features two
sculptures by local artist Charles Goslin depicting that history. 

Goslin’s original wagon train
sculpture was reproduced in life size for this park. Most of the work is a stone
relief of covered wagons driven by men and boys. At the front is a freestanding
bronze oxen team. A bronze pioneer mother accompanies the relief.

Near the wagon train installation
stands a limestone and bronze portrait of wagon master Richard “Dick” Williams.
Williams first came to Johnson County in the 1850s as a government surveyor. He
then worked as a “wagonmaster” escorting wagon trains from Kansas City to Santa
Fe, New Mexico, and other destinations in the western United States.

Some Shawnee residents questioned
spending close to $1 million on the 2.2 acre park and stone and bronze
sculptures. The park is a narrow wedge of land in a commercial district that
was once a used car lot.

Park created the town of Shawnee's 150th anniversary in 2006. It commemorates Shawnee’s place on the mid-19th-century Santa Fe, Oregon, and California wagon trails and Fort Leavenworth Military Road. It features two sculptures by local artist Charles Goslin depicting that history.

Pioneer Crossing Park

To mark its 150th
anniversary, the town of Olathe constructed a 10,000-square-foot Heritage
Center to accompany the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop and Farm historic site and erected
a sixty-foot-long bronze stagecoach relief by local artist Kwan Wu.

The sculpture is 60 feet long
and 15 feet tall. It features full scale bronze relief of stagecoach and
passengers against a concrete backdrop. Stand-alone figures of horses, a woman
and young boy emerge from the relief.

Sculptor Kwan Wu was
born, raised, and trained in China. He immigrated to the United States in 1988, settling in the Kansas City area. He became a U.S. citizen in 1997.

The stagecoach sculpture reflects the ethnic diversity of the 19th-century American West. Wu’s stagecoach scene is
far more diverse than most pioneer monuments. Wu relied on historic photographs and photos of reproduction clothing and a stagecoach as he sculpted the scene. Fifteen characters represent men,
women, and children of different ethnicities traveling on the stagecoach. A Latino man and African-American couple sit on the roof of the crowded stagecoach.&nbsp;A Native
American woman and her dog wave farewell to the travelers while birds fly overhead.

The sculpture was funded
by private donations to mark Olathe’s 150th anniversary. It was dedicated
August 14, 2008.

“We wanted to give
something significant that the city could be proud of,” said Marlene Natoli, a
co-chair of Olathe’s Sequicentennial Committee. The sculpture “doesn’t let the
city forget where it came from.”1

The sculpture was
originally planned as part of the construction of a 10,000-square-foot, $3
million Heritage Center next to the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop and Farm. That
plan was set aside when funds ran short. But Wu had already designed the
sculpture, which was taken up by the town’s sesquicentennial committee. Local philanthropist
Maron Moore contributed half of the $400,000 budget. The anniversary committee
raised the other half. 

The artist used local
residents as models. Donor Maron Moore sits in the front window of the
stagecoach. Sesquicentennial Committee co-chair Mike Haskins and Mahaffie employees provided faces for several other characters.&nbsp;

This stagecoach sculpture designed by local Chinese-born artist Kwan Wu, reflects the ethnic diversity of the 19th-century American West. The sculpture was funded by private donations to mark Olathe’s 150th anniversary.

Going West on the Old Santa Fe Trail

This bronze sculpture is dedicated to all of the children whose lives were lost due to the harsh conditions on the overland journeys westward. A pioneer boy, a girl and their dog run through an arch. A rainbow floats above them and doves fly overhead. Rocks in the fountain beneath them represent the streams that children crossed on the overland trail. The sculpture was dedicated on Old Settlers Day, September 7, 2000, by the Johnson County Old Settlers Association.This work was was sculpted by Kansas City artist Kwan Wu. Sculptor Kwan Wu was born and trained in China, but since immigrating to the United States and settling in the Kansas City area he has sculpted two major works depicting the western trails for Olathe, Kansas. The other is "Going West on the Old Santa Fe Trail." Dedication plaque text:Perhaps the greatest test of the pioneers’ spirit was the loss of children like Asa Smith to the harsh and unforgiving elements of the frontier. His tiny marker stands today at the intersection of K-10 and K-7 Highways. It is joined by this sculpture created in loving memory of every child lost along the trails as families faced the unknown, blazing our nation’s westward growth.

This bronze sculpture is dedicated to all of the children whose lives were lost due to the harsh conditions on the overland journeys westward. A pioneer boy, a girl and their dog run through an arch. It was sculpted by Kansas City artist Kwan Wu. Rocks in the fountain beneath them represent the streams that children crossed on the overland trail. Sculptor Kwan Wu was born and trained in China, but since immigrating to the United States and settling in the Kansas City area he has sculpted two major works depicting the western trails for Olathe, Kansas.

Children of the Trails sculpture

Statue of pioneer family marks the junction of the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. It depicts a man in frontier clothing kneeling in prayer. He holds a Bible in one hand, and his other hand rests on a walking plow. His wife stands beside him with her head bowed in prayer. She cradles their young son in one arm and rests the other hand on her husband's shoulder. This statue became a centerpoint of MidAmerica Nazarene University when erected in the campus Prayer Circle in 1994.

Kansas City Metro Area Pioneer Monuments

Stella at the Spring and A Young Native American

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Additional Information