Instructor

This statue was the first piece of public art erected by the City of Westminster. It was a gift from real estate developer Jim Sullivan, whose company built more than 1 million square feet of retail space in Westminster. It is part of a city mission to integrate art into the community. It was placed outside the doors to City Hall in 1993. Since then, the city has installed more than 100 bronze sculptures and murals throughout the community.This sculpture depicts a pioneer family. It features a father dressed in overalls, a mother wearing a prairie-style gown and apron, and their young son. Most pioneer family monuments place a school-aged son in front of his parents, preparing to lead them into the future. Mothers often gaze lovingly at a baby in their arms. In this work, in contrast, the father holds a preschool-aged boy. Both father and mother gaze into the distance, imagining their future. Rather than gripping books to prepare for the future, the young boy plays with his father's wide-brimmed hat. The boy is barefoot, which was typical for frontier children but is rarely seen in pioneer monuments. On this young boy, it further emphasizes his innocence.The monument inscription emphasizes family commitment and hope for the future:<blockquote>"Our hope, our vision of tomorrow, is only fulfilled by the strong resolve of our families."</blockquote>This statue was sculpted by Loveland, Colorado, resident George Wayne Lundeen. It is a copy of a piece commissioned by the artist's hometown of Holdredge, Nebraska. Another Lundeen sculpture, First Mitt, stands outside the Christopher Fields complex in Westminster.

More Info

The first piece of public art installed by the City of Westminster, it has stood near City Hall since 1993. It depicts a frontier family representing family values and hope for the future. It was sculpted by Loveland, Colorado, artist George W. Lundeen. It was donated by real estate developer Jim Sullivan.

Promise of the Prairie statue

Frontier-themed public sculptures in the Denver area.

<h4>History of the Smoky Hill Trail</h4>In 1859, prospectors found gold along Cherry Creek in modern-day Denver, and as quick as the word spread, thousands of prospectors began traversing the Rocky Mountains to seek their fortunes. However, there was no official path crossing Kansas, connecting the East to Denver. The westernmost traveling point at that time was in Salina, part of the Oregon Trail. To quicken the route to Denver and make it safer, surveyors and frontiersman began taking the ancient trail along the Smoky Hill River that was used by Native Americans. Although the trail was substantially harder and more dangerous than other prairie trails from the Missouri River to the Rockies, thousands of would-be prospectors, homesteaders, and soldiers traveled the Smoky Hill Trail between 1859 and 1865. Among the dangers included attacks by local tribes and scarce water supplies. Many survived the trip nonetheless, traveling in covered wagons or on foot pushing carts and wheelbarrows. Others, however, were not so fortunate.  Stagecoach transportation to Denver was established by 1865, and during the trail’s heyday, many famous individuals followed its route to Denver, including Wild Bill Hickock, Wyatt Earp, and Buffalo Bill Cody.1Marker Inscription:This tablet is the Property of the State of ColoradoHere was the end of the famousSmoky Hill TrailImmigrant and stage road extendingfrom the Missouri River to Denver.Traversed by pioneers in 1858.Surveyed by W.G. Russell in 1860.Route of Butterfield's OverlandDespatch and Wells Fargo Express.The trail took its human toll -Death by thirst and Indian raids.2 History of the Pioneer MonumentDenver business leaders hired prominent sculptor Frederick MacMonnies to sculpt a decorative fountain for the growing city in 1904. But when the artist’s design for the Pioneer Monument appeared in local newspapers, it sparked public outrage. Many believed it inverted what they assumed to be a God-given racial hierarchy. The sculptor explained that his<blockquote>“idea in the design has been to make a gradual transition from civilization to savage life ... First, the Pioneer Settlers, Miners, Cowboys; then the Wild Animals; finally the Savage and the Buffalo (which are even now almost myths!), sacrificed to civilization and about to disappear forever into the Happy Hunting Grounds.”3</blockquote> MacMonnies’ assumption that Native peoples and bison were dying off to make room for white settlement was typical of his era and accepted in local press coverage. The problem was that critics read the monument in the traditional manner, expecting the pinnacle of American Progress to appear atop the colossal central column, as it did in San Francisco’s 1894 Pioneer Monument. Instead, MacMonnies seemed to glorify the “savages” displaced by white settlers by placing a nude Plains Indian seated on a rearing horse at the pinnacle of the thirty-foot monument. An editorial in the Rocky Mountain News insisted,<blockquote>“We have no prejudice against the noble red man. But history hath it that he faded away before the advance of the pioneers. . . . [W]e don’t want the Indian dominating a structure erected to the men whose business was getting rid of Indians.”4</blockquote>Viewers found it unacceptable for an indigenous warrior to be glorified over the sacrifices of white hunters, prospectors and pioneer mothers. And that warrior’s martial pose contradicted popular notions of Indians necessarily yielding to dominant white culture. Local newspapers focused on the controversy. When the secretary of the Western Federation of Miners stood trial for his life, he used his notoriety to champion replacing MacMonnies’ Plains Indian warrior with a Pony Express rider. The Rocky Mountain News complied with his request that its staff sketch such a monument and compose a poem supporting his proposal. Under pressure from the Colorado Society of Pioneers, MacMonnies ultimately replaced the heroic Indian figure with a sculpture of renowned frontiersman and Indian fighter Kit Carson. Carson was the grandson of frontiersman and folk hero Daniel Boone. The finished monument featured Carson on horseback towering above three other bronze figures representing frontier life: a prospector, a hunter, and a Pioneer Mother with child. MacMonnies thus gave in to the public’s expectation that white Progress would stand proudly and unchallenged atop the massive pillar. MacMonnies’ finished monument met with widespread approval. The 1911 dedication was celebrated by<blockquote>“Hundreds of aged men who carried civilization into the Rockies . . . and aided in wresting what is now the great state of Colorado from the domain of ‘savage beasts and still more savage men,’”</blockquote>along with Colorado’s governor and members of the Pioneer Society, the Sons of Colorado, and the Grand Army of the Republic. So important was it for aging settlers, including those “unable to acquire a competency under the conditions of civilization which they helped to bring about,” to attend the dedication of the monument in their honor that local newspapers and other “public spirited institutions” paid to bring them to Denver and give them “the time of their lives.”5 The Pioneer Monument and other Civic Center monuments became controversial once more in 2020 amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Protesters tore down a monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus and a Civil War monument that included a commemoration of the Sand Creek Massacre. On June 26, 2020, city officials removed the statue of Kit Carson from the Pioneer Monument to prevent its destruction by protesters.

The 1911 Pioneer Monument marks the end of the Smoky Hill Trail, which crossed the great plains from Kansas to Denver and served as the principal route for prospectors seeking their fortunes during the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush. Artist Frederick MacMonnies' original design sparked public controversy because it did not sufficiently celebrate white "civilization" replacing supposed Native savagery. MacMonnies compromised by replacing the Plains Indian warrior at the top of the pillar with a statue of Kit Carson. In 2020, the monument again sparked controversy, this time because it celebrated white cultural dominance.

Pioneer Monument and the Smoky Hill Trail

This sculpture of a traveling Victorian-era western woman depicts new opportunities for western women. Artist Veryl Goodnight has sculpted western women for decades. The first casting of this sculpture was purchased by Cheyenne, Wyoming, to celebrate Wyoming entering the Union as the first woman suffrage state. Colorado became the first state to give women the right to vote in a popular election in 1893. But this casting of the statue was donated by James J. Volker to honor Colorado educators. Volker views the sculpture as a teacher who has come to Colorado to train a new generation of students. Volker also donated T. D. Kelsey’s On the Wind, a bronze bison that used to stand at the Colorado History Museum. It was later relocated to History Colorado Center’s Broadway entrance. Volker is a businessman who has served on History Colorado’s board since 2007. Since the 1980s, a number of western history museums have placed bronze monuments near their entrances. These statues serve to emphasize the historical content displayed within new, modern museum buildings.

Colorado became the first state in the Union to give women the right to vote in a popular election in 1893. "A New Beginning" represents western women's empowerment women in the 1890s. It was sculpted by Veryl Goodnight and placed outside History Colorado Center in time for the center's opening in 2012.

A New Beginning

In the mid-1960s, Denver named this small triangular park after real estate developer William Zeckendorf. The honoree’s foundation offered a $5,000 prize for a sculpture for the park dedicated to Colorado pioneers and produced by a Colorado artist. The selection committee was not impressed by traditional designs for this new monument. Instead, they chose a design by a young local artist, Susan Pogzeba, who “refuse[d] to ascribe any particular meaning to” her abstract design. But she explained that “other people have tried to pin such meanings as ‘family’ on it.” The artist said that she “was just working with forms and this was the result.”1Pogzeba’s forms echo the standing figures in Avard Fairbanks’ semicircular 1946 Pioneer Family Group on the North Dakota state capitol grounds in Bismarck. But Pogzeba’s abstract, flat shapes bore little resemblance to Fairbanks’ realist pioneer characters. That Pogzeba’s abstract figures also evoked the forms of the Rocky Mountains towering to the west of Denver may have increased the design’s appeal for the selection committee. The Minimalism of Pogzeba’s abstract metal forms appears to have made her entry stand out to the Zeckendorf monument’s selection committee, which awarded second prize to a series of engraved tablets, and third prize to a “stylized metal sculpture of tree forms.”2Pogzeba’s design was far less warmly received by the general public. The Kenosha [Wisconsin] News printed a United Press International photo of its 1968 unveiling with three older women clad in wool coats and headscarves in the foreground with skeptical looks on their faces, under the title “’We don’t like it.’” Like those three women, most westerners still expected American pioneer monuments to embody traditional values rather than pioneering new artistic styles. Colorado residents rejected Denver’s fine arts establishment’s claim that Pogzeba’s abstract figures represented an Homage to the Pioneer. But the public’s objection appears to have been to the pioneer label that certain Denverites insisted on applying to Pogzeba’s design, more so than to the design itself. Indeed, it was widely enough appreciated to justify installing a fiberglass copy in Reverchon Park in Dallas in that same year under the more generic title of Family Group. There the copy remained until 1991, when it was destroyed by vandals. The original bronze work--displayed without its pioneer title--survived but gradually was forgotten as downtown Denver was redeveloped around it.

Minimalist sculpture selected to honor Colorado pioneers in the mid-1960s. Artist Susan Pogzeba insisted that she was just playing with shapes, and that the sculpture was not intended to represent anything in particular. Nonetheless, it was chosen to honor Colorado pioneers in a park named after real estate developer William Zeckendorf.

Homage to the Pioneer statue

Denver Botanic Gardens' (DBG) York Street location is a 24-acre facility boasting approximately 50 distinctive gardens, including the 3-acre Mordecai Children's Garden. The grounds feature art as well as plants, including glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly, which are incorporated within the landscape design. Themed tours such as Stories in Sculpture, Seasonal Discovery, Garden Guru, and Midsummer Nights are offered, as well as daily programming at the Children's Garden. Guests can learn about the DBG's horticultural and biodiversity research at the interactive Science Pyramid, learn about the Gardens' living collections and herbaria (natural history collections), or visit the Helen Fowler library, which holds 25,000 titles as well as an extensive collection of botanical prints.DBG groups its gardens into five categories. There are 18 Gardens of the West, which feature plants which thrive in arid climates, such as Colorado's own. Many of these feature native plants. Among these are the Mordecai Children's Garden (featuring six Colorado ecosystems), conservation and water-smart themed gardens, and a Green Roof Garden. In the Internationally Inspired category are bonsai, a tea garden, a tropical conservatory, a steppe region garden, and Japanese, Chinese, and South African gardens, among others. The Ornamental Gardens include sculpture, Victorian, herb, sensory, cutting gardens, a greenhouse complex, and more. Four Shady Gardens include a Woodland Mosaic, Oak Grove, Shady Lane, and Birds and Bees Walk, and the three Water Gardens are the Steppe Garden Waterway, Four Towers Pool (housing the Science Pyramid), and Monet Pool. The Gardens are also an accredited museum and research center. It holds seven living collections (plants on the grounds, in the conservatories, or in seed collections): Alpine, Amenity, Aquatic, Native, Steppe, Tropical, and Cactus &amp; Succulents; two herbaria collections of vascular plants and fungi, which focus on biodiversity and the regional species distribution; and the art, documents, and 25,000 books of the Helen Fowler Library, which focuses on topics including gardening, horticulture, botany, agriculture, landscaping, Colorado native plants, world flora, botanical art and illustration, medical botany, ethnobotany, plant pests and diseases, and plant lore, as well as a collection of children's books, fiction, and multimedia. The library also holds 1,200 works of art, and offers a Gardening Help Desk. The Gardens offer the public hands-on workshops, lectures and seminars, travel opportunities, and certificate courses, including its School of Botanical Art and Illustration, as well as children's programs such as Seedlings Classes, camps, Family Fun Nights, Homeschool and Scout programs, and host field trips and birthday parties. Research undertaken by DBG in horticulture and biodiversity include long-term monitoring, genetic studies, seed collections, botanical surveys, species discovery, and ecological restoration. DBG also researches phenology (the study of botanical phenomena, such as flowers blooming and leaf color changes), which is important for agricultural timing and conservation research. The research and conservation department particularly focuses on steppe regions of the world, semi-arid, cold-winter areas such as the shortgrass prairies and sagebrush valleys of Colorado, as well as parts of Eurasia, South Africa, and South America. This research is showcased at the Science Pyramid through interactive touchscreens, light, video, and sound.The Plains Garden features Robert Garrison’s Covered Wagon Frieze installed on a brick wall. It was originally sculpted for Midlands Savings Bank in Denver in the 1920s. Garrison’s frieze emphasizes male settlers’ work settling and civilizing the frontier. It follows a Mississippi farmer as he journeys West with his family. They survive an Indian attack on their way to the Colorado gold fields where they “establish industry and commerce.” In contrast to standard depictions of pioneer women walking westward, Garrison included a few scenes of women cooking and homemaking. More surprisingly, he depicted women shooting at marauding Indians.Another major aspect of Denver Botanical Gardens is community outreach, including food programs and initiatives, a veterans' farm program and therapeutic horticulture for special needs and senior citizens, exhibitions of local art, and Mount Goliath wildflower hikes. In 2012, DBG established the Center for Global Initiatives, which focuses on agricultural development, botany, conservation, and horticulture around the world. The Center's projects include the International Travel Program, Coffee Research, and research in Madagascar, Mongolia, Argentina, Mexico, Haiti, and India.

Denver Botanic Gardens' (DBG) York Street location is a 24-acre facility boasting approximately 50 distinctive gardens, including the 3-acre Mordecai Children's Garden. The grounds feature art as well as plants, including glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly, which are incorporated within the landscape design. Themed tours such as Stories in Sculpture, Seasonal Discovery, Garden Guru, and Midsummer Nights are offered, as well as daily programming at the Children's Garden. Guests can learn about the DBG's horticultural and biodiversity research at the interactive Science Pyramid, learn about the Gardens' living collections and herbaria (natural history collections), or visit the Helen Fowler library, which holds 25,000 titles as well as an extensive collection of botanical prints.

Denver Botanic Gardens

In 1880, the City of Denver purchased prairie land for the creation of City Park. Civil engineer Henry F. Meryweather designed the park in the Olmsted tradition, using New York City's Central Park as the model for his park's curving roads, water features, and scenic vistas. Over 600 trees were planted across 80 acres of the park by 1890, watered by a natural drainage course which crosses the park lengthwise. The north section of the park (where the zoo, museum, and many of the sports fields border City Park Golf Course) was dedicated to activities which have changed over the years, and the south section, which remains largely unchanged, was designated as a passive landscape. At the turn of the century, Reinhard Schuetze redesigned portions of the park, and in the 1920s S. DeBoer made additional changes.The Sullivan Memorial Gateway was added at the City Park Esplanade entrance, near the Thatcher Memorial Fountain, in 1917. The gateway was designed by Chicago architect Edward Herbert Bennett, and features pioneer women and miners representing Colorado's first two industries sculpted by New Yorker Leo Lentelli atop freestanding Doric columnns. On one side, a man and boy representing Mining stand on one tall pedestal. On the other, a woman in a sunbonnet and a girl with a basket of grain representing Agriculture. The gateway was installed as part of the City Beautiful movement. It was designed by Robert Willison of Denver. John Clark Mitchell donated funds to erect it in memory of banker Dennis Sullivan.The elaborate Thatcher Memorial Fountain, featuring a bronze woman holding a sword and shield, came a year later, and was sculpted by Lorado Raft of Chicago. The woman represents The State, and additional figures on the fountain represent Love, Learning, and Loyalty. The Sopris Gateway at East 17th Avenue is a red sandstone pedestrian and, at the time, trolley entrance designed by Frank E. Edbrooke (architect of Denver's Brown Palace Hotel) and created by local contractors including Colorado Red Sandstone Company, lamps by Verdeckberg &amp; Burkhardt, and Silver State Electric Company. The 1903 McLellan Gateway, originally located at East 18th Avenue on the west side of the park, was moved to the East 21st Avenue entrance in 1957 to alleviate traffic problems. William McLellan, a Blacksmith and member of the Denver City Council, is said to have donated half his life savings to the park. The gateway named for him was designed by Edward H. Moorman, and its new location puts it next to the 1892-1893 park superintendent's residence and carriage house, first occupied by Alexander J. Graham. The pink granite Monti Gateway on the east side of the park was designed by Richard Phillips in 1917 [2].From 1892 until 1950, the park featured a racetrack managed by the Gentlemen's Driving &amp; Riding Club. Other activity centers in the north section of the park include the zoo, museum, ball fields, a general recreation area, and playgrounds. Some of the historic buildings in this section include a 1912 fire station, the park nurseries and 1895 greenhouse, two 1930s WPA-built warehouses, three red brick barns dating to the 1880s-1904, the historic section of the Denver Zoo (including the 1918 Bear Mountain exhibit and one of the three barns previously mentioned, which is now the Monkey House). In 1918, the park's nurseries comprised over 60,000 trees, 23,000 perennials, and 23,000 cuttings and seedlings [2].Originally, the park's pavilion was constructed at Duck Lake, but was replaced in 1896 by a pavilion on Ferril Lake, which, in turn, was replaced by the present City Park Pavilion in 1929 on the same site. The current Pavilion was designed by William E. Fisher and John H. Humphreys, in the style of a rural Italian Renaissance villa. On the side of the pavilion opposite the lake, a formal flower garden surrounds a 1925 memorial to Elizabeth Ellen Sopris. Other park monuments include the 1897 Grand Army of the Republic trio of cannons, 1904 bronze of Robert Burns and the formal Burns Garden, 1906 Colonial Dames Sundial and Sons of Colorado Flagpole, the 1912 Children's Fountain, the 1930 Grizzly's Last Stand sculpture, and the 1976 monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. Other features include vast forested areas, an open meadow, plaza, boathouse, lily pond, playground and bandstand. The lake, created in 1887, became home to a prismatic fountain, designed by F. W. Darlington of the Denver &amp; Interurban Railroad Company, in 1908. The fountain was restored in 1983. Between the two lakes stands the 1906-1908 Pumping Plant which was home to the Denver Zoo's first elephant in the 1950s [2].

One of Denver's oldest parks, City Park was designed in 1882 by Henry Merryweather in the style of New York's Central Park. The park features gardens and a large greenhouse, mountain vistas, picnic areas, a playground, walking and jogging paths, tennis and handball courts, horseshoe pits, a lake and pavilion, ponds, and interactive fountains, and fields for baseball, softball, soccer, and football. The park is also home to the Denver Zoo and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and is included on the National Register of Historic Places

Denver's Pioneer Monuments

Promise of the Prairie statue

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information