Saving the Names
By 1928, the U.S. numbered highway system was an accepted way for navigating around the country. The named trails and their supporting associations were fading in importance.
That did not mean the named trail associations were not clinging to hope of revival. For example, on March 13, 1928, Representative Charles G. Edwards of Georgia introduced H.R. 12040:
A BILL
Requiring the names as well as the numbers of memorial highways to be given on maps and directional signs to perpetuate the purposes of such memorials.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all highways built or maintained by and through Federal aid should be designated by numbers and by names, where such highways are known by names, on the directional signs erected along said highways and upon the maps authorized and published by the States or the federal Government; and in the case of memorial, or other distinctive highways, built or maintained by Federal-aid funds, such as the Lee, Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson Davis, Dixie, Bankhead, Victory, Atlantic Coastal, and others well known by name, shall be designated on such markers, signs, and maps, by names, as well as by numbers.
The bill was referred to the Committee on Roads.
On April 26, 1928, not long after the visit by Truman, Davis, Mrs. Moss, Senator Capper of Kansas was even more explicit in S. J. Res 138, perhaps a result of Truman’s visit:
JOINT RESOLUTION
To provide for the designation of the route of The National Old Trails Road and the markers thereon.
Whereas the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution has been active for years in the work of preserving the history and sentiment attached to a transcontinental highway from the colonial East to Spanish Southwest; and
Whereas these famous trails, to wit, the Washington or Braddock Road, the Old National or Cumberland Road, the Boone’s Lick Road, the Old Santa Fe Trail, and the Grand Canyon-Petrified Forest Road have been placed end to end to form a great transcontinental highway under the name of The National Trails Road [sic]: Therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this highway extending from Washington, District of Columbia, and Baltimore, Maryland, via the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, to Los Angeles, California, shall hereafter be known as The National Old Trails Road.
Sec. 2. That the road herein described as The National Old Trails Road shall follow present designated highways which are as close as economic and topographical conditions will permit to the routes traveled by the pioneers in their journeys westward over said trails, which shall be via the following route:
Across the State of Maryland from Washington, District of Columbia, to Frederick, Maryland, via United States Highway Numbered 240; from Baltimore, Maryland, via United States Highway Numbered 40 to the Maryland-Pennsylvania State line.
Across the State of Pennsylvania via United States Highway Numbered 40.
Across the State of West Virginia via United States Highway Numbered 40.
Across the State of Ohio from the West Virginia-Ohio State line to the town of Brandt, Ohio, via United States Highway Numbered 40; from Brandt to Dayton via Ohio State Highway Numbered 201; from Dayton the Ohio-Indiana State line via Ohio State Highway Numbered 11.
Across the State of Indiana via United States Highway Numbered 40.
Across the State of Illinois via United States Highway Numbered 40.
Across the State of Missouri from Saint Louis to Boonville via United States Highway Numbered 40; from Boonville through Arrow Rock to Marshall via State Highways Numbered 41 and 20; from Marshall to Waverly via United States Highway Numbered 65; from Waverly through Lexington to Kansas City via United State Highway Numbered 24.
Across the State of Kansas from the Missouri-Kansas State line via United States Highway Numbered 50 to Baldwin; from Baldwin to Larned via United States Highway Number 50 north; from Larned to Kinsley via Kansas State Highway Numbered 37; from Kinsley to Garden City via United States Highway Numbered 50 south; from Garden City to the Kansas-Colorado State line via United States Highway Numbered 50.
Across the State of Colorado from the Kansas-Colorado State line to La Junta via United States Highway Numbered 50; from La Junta to Trinidad via United States Highway Numbered 350; from Trinidad to the Colorado-New Mexico State line via United States Highway Numbered 85.
Across the State of New Mexico from the Colorado-New Mexico State line via United States Highway Numbered 85 to Socorro; from Los Lunas through Gallup to the New Mexico-Arizona State line via United States Highway Numbered 66; from Socorro through Magdalena to the New Mexico-Arizona State line via United States Highway Numbered 70.
Across the State of Arizona from the New Mexico-Arizona State line east of Springerville, Arizona, via United States Highway Numbered 70 to Holbrook; and from the New Mexico-Arizona State line west of Gallup, New Mexico, via United States Highway Numbered 66 to the Arizona-California State line.
Across the State of California via United States Highway Numbered 66 to Los Angeles.
Reference herein to United States Highway and State Highway route numbers is to those in effect January 1, 1928.
Sec. 3, That the memorial character of The National Old Trails Road may be perpetuated, it is hereby recommended to the Bureau of Public Roads, Department of Agriculture, and to the Highway departments of the States across which The National Old Trails Road as herein designated passes, that along this highway the signs on which the numbers are placed, while conforming to the size, shape, and design adopted by the American Association of State Highway Officials, shall contain a distinctive red, white, and blue color combination.
The joint resolution was referred to the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. The committee’s chairman, Representative Charles L. McNary of Oregon, transmitted the bill to the U.S. Department for Agriculture examination.
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Renick W. Dunlap (April 1, 1925-March 6, 1933), an Ohio farmer and former Ohio Secretary of Agriculture, replied for Secretary Jardine on May 16, 1928:
Dear Senator McNary:
Senate Joint Resolution No. 138, submitted with your letter of April 27, has been carefully examined and I feel that comment should properly go somewhat beyond the merits of the action specifically provided for by this resolution because H.R. 12040, which resembled S. J. Res. 138, but which is more general in its scope, has recently been brought to the attention of the Bureau of Public Roads of this Department.
I feel that very doubtful advantage would result from any such action as that proposed in either of these documents. Certainly, before giving specific consideration to the route to be known as The National Old Trails Road, or to any other single route for which a name has been proposed, the whole question of policy should be first carefully considered. Bills of this character in effect instruct the States to give certain names to certain trans-state highways which are parts of these named routes and further provide that the routes shall be marked in a particular way.
Inasmuch as the States have already taken in hand on their own initiative the matter of designating and marking transcontinental and interstate routes, it appears to me unnecessary that specific bills should take the time of Congress and the committees for covering some particular route, especially when it may not be satisfactory to many of the States through which it passes. I think it would be much better to leave these matters in the hands of the States.
Considered simply from the historical standpoint it would be regrettable and very easy to introduce anachronisms. The present bill contains at least two, so that its historical significance is blunted, and at least one of the instances in the present bill, as I know from previous discussion of the matter, abandons all idea of history and sentiment for the sake of purely selfish business advantage.
Should a policy of designating such routes be acceptable to the Congress, the work should certainly be well done and it is suggested in such cases that the question of routes be left entirely to the States; that the general policy should be to retain the old historic names; and that a selection of routes be insisted upon that would avoid either the duplication of names on the same route, or the duplication of routes having the same name.
I feel, however, that such a policy or such specific recognition in isolated cases, like that covered by the resolution, is more likely to result in endless controversy than in any good. An attempt to administer such acts would result in pressure being brought through every possible channel in order to influence decisions under the act. Cities large and small would attempt to influence the selection of routes and between such places there would be serious differences of opinion as to which existing present-day highway most nearly represents the historic route or trail.
You will, I think, readily appreciate the serious embarrassment of any Government agency that might be called upon to administer an act of this kind in view of the fact that there are more than 250 named trails on record in this Department and over a hundred separate trails organizations promoting these routes. Recognition of any one trail or organization by official action would be considered discriminatory by those not so favored and recognition of all would unquestionably be ill-advised and probably impossible. It was the confusion resulting from the uncoordinated action of these voluntary organizations that led the States to take this matter into their own hands, and
I believe the States have adjusted it in the most advisable and least controversial way.
I think S. J. Res. 138 would lead to endless controversy were it adopted, and I certainly do not recommend it. [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
The reply is odd in some ways, particularly the reference in the second paragraph to the National Old Trails Road, one of the best known roads of its era, as if it were being designated by the resolution. Nevertheless, the letter reflected the official view that the named trails era of highway promotion was over.
The National Old Trails Road Association was not about to give up. AASHO had a process for considering changes in the U.S. numbered highway system, and that seemed to offer a way to proceed.
In a typed message dated June 24, 1927, George L. L. Gann of Pueblo, Colorado, offered a “Plan” for correcting what National Old Trails Road Association considered a mistake:
End U.S. 66 at Las Vegas N. Mex.
U.S. 66 is not a THROUGH NUMBER and it would not be any violation of rules to end it where ever it intersects a THROUGH NUMBER. Also the “Official” influence within the Assn. of State Highway Officials which brought about this diagonal irregularity has been removed.
Take U.S. 50 N. as now located via Pueblo to Montrose and thence south to Gallup N.Mex. Take U.S. 50 S. from La Junta via Trinidad, Las Vegas and Santa to Gallup N.Mex. And U.S. 50 from Gallup thru Ariz. and Calif. To Los Angeles. Thereby giving a uniform, continuous number from Kansas City to Los Angeles.
Continue U.S. 40 S. from its present dead end at Grand Junction over the route now designated U.S. 50 to Salt Lake City and a connection with U.S. 40 and thereby making that a real thru line instead of a make believe.
In stating that the “Official” influence within AASHO had been removed, Gann was referring to the departure of Avery, Piepmeier, and others who had created the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route, initially as U.S. 60, then as U.S. 66.
Frank Davis replied to Gunn on June 27, 1927:
Dear Mr. Gann:
I wrote you on June 25 and the next day received yours of June 24th covering your findings concerning the U.S. Numbering System.
We indeed do attach much importance to this numbering system. We think it was a great work and if they had adhered to the announced plan of giving continuous numbers to routes along the “trend of travel” it would have met with little opposition.
But as it now stands there is much dissatisfaction throughout the entire country and
U.S. Congressmen and Senators are being importuned by their constituents to do something about it.
The unfairness to the National Old Trails and Kansas City in giving two continuous numbers to San Francisco [U.S. 40 and U.S. 50, which ended at U.S. 40 in Sacramento] and NONE to Los Angeles and giving both Chicago and St. Louis a continuous number with a road crossing all the other through routes to Los Angeles is a glaring and outstanding irregularity in their system which the dissatisfied element all over the United States is using in their argument against the whole plan, and they are beseeching the N.O.T. to take the lead in a fight to tear down the whole system, which we are not inclined to do.
But we are taking steps to enlist the help and sympathy of Senator Reed of Missouri, who is both politically and personally a friend of our president Judge Truman.
In a letter pertaining to this U.S. Numbering system written by Thos. MacDonald of the office of publis [sic] roads, to Senator Mayfield of Texas, MacDonald says “The plan to use numbers for uniform marking of important interstate road is NOT an activity of the Federal Government.”
But if the correspondence that I have on file here from all over the United States is any indication, there will be proposed at the next Session of Congress some National Legislation bearing on this U.S. Numbering Stunt and unless the American Association of State Highway Officials takes some action to cover up the glaring irregularities that they have incorporated in their plan as now proposed, they are likely to land in some embarrassing situations.
We do indeed attach much importance to this numbering system and even tho the Highway Assn. may think the matter is closed, we expect to stay on the job of advocating a continuous number from K. C. to L.A. which position we can support with indisputable evidence concerning the “trend of traffic”. Thanks for your interest and sympathy.
In a letter dated July 2, 1927, Davis tried to enlist support from L. D. Blauvelt, Colorado’s State Highway Engineer, for a meeting to discuss the best way to protest the unfairness to the National Old Trails Road:
We expect in the very near future to stage a meeting in Southern Colorado to voice a protest against the unfairness to the National Old Trails Road of the U.S. Numbering System, and our loyal friend Mr. Geo. L.L. Gann of Pueblo writes us that you would be a valuable ally to us if you understood our position and he urged that we invite you to attend the meeting and even that we fix a date to suit your convenience.
Therefore we would like to know what dates between July 24 and August 10th you could be present at a meeting at La Junta Colo. [sic] to discuss this matter and we will try to arrange our meeting to coincide therewith.
As indicative of our position in this matter I inclose copy of my last letter to Mr. Gann; also a suggestion for relief that would conform to the plan of the Association of State Highway Officials.
We would appreciate from you a frank criticism of this suggestion, for we would rather co-operate in building up than to attempt to tear down, and if you can see your way to give us any encouragement, we will attempt to organize all Southern Colorado (even Colorado Springs and the towns on 40 S.) to support you in your own State; and our friends and Legislators from the States thru which the N.O.T. passes in support of your angle of the National legislation pertaining to this marking which is sure to be presented to the next National Congress.
Blauvelt replied on July 6, 1927, that because of the construction season, he would be unable to attend the meeting. He offered his comments in the letter:
I would suggest that the proper way to handle this matter, from your point of view, would be to submit a petition, endorsed by the Highway Departments of the various States affected by the proposed number “U.S. 50-South” to the Executive Committee of the American Association of State Highway Officials at its annual meeting in Denver, October 3rd, where I think that other matters pertaining to U.S. road numbering will be taken up and receive due consideration.
There is nothing that I could personally do at your meeting, other than advise you of the proper procedures, i.e., to take up through the affected State Highway Departments the proposed request.
On June 16, 1928, Davis wrote to AASHO’s William C. Markham:
Dear Mr. Markham:
Following the plan suggested to us at the Denver meeting we have proceeded to secure the “official” endorsement of the Highway Commissions of the States effected for a single U.S. Number from K.C. to Los Angeles and to date we have such resolutions passed by every state except one, and in that one, we have been assured by our friends it will be passed.
Now as you have always been our friend I am giving you this information in advance so that you can advise us of the procedure to accomplish our object. The basis of our claim will be that the “trend of traffic” from K.C. to the Pacific Coast is overwhelmingly to Los Angeles.
We are going to miss very much the advice and help of B. L. Thompson (deceased) of Herington who has already represented us in this matter but we expect to leave no stone unturned to get righted the wrong done the N.O.T. in this U.S. Numbering System.
Please let me know your suggestions at an early date so that we will not be caught unprepared. [National Archives at College Park, Maryland]
After AASHO approved the U.S. numbered highway system on November 11, 1926, the organization considered changes only if they were submitted directly by the members of the association, namely the State highway departments. AASHO would not consider a proposal directly from the National Old Trails Road Association, even if it included State highway department concurrence. The proposal would have to come in the form of a joint proposal from all the States involved.
Davis may not have been aware that those who had conceived U.S. 66, originally U.S. 60, thought of it as one of the greatest routes in the new network. It cut across most of the transcontinental routes to provide a link to the southwest, including of course Los Angeles. It would, in their view, be one of the most heavily traveled.
As Susan Croce Kelly explained in her biography of Avery, he was proud of his role in seeing that such a road could be connected — via Tulsa — and securing a single number for it. As early as July 1926, he was talking with John Woodruff, like Avery a veteran of the named trail era, about ensuring the road was improved:
Years later, Woodruff remembered that afternoon. “He [Avery] was particularly impressed with the importance of Highway 66. I suggested that we should organize a 66 Highway Association to promote the early completion and permanent maintenance of this great highway, but we did not perfect plans at that time.”
In October 1926, as AASHO was finalizing the map of the new system, Avery again visited Woodruff “and a handful of other local diehard road promoters:
Their purpose: to see that U.S. 66 was the first cross-country highway paved from end to end. These veteran highway men were all well aware that even with federal aid funds and the public’s relentless determination to have hard-surfaced roads, U.S. 66 would not become a national highway in the public’s eye without their help. At least not on their schedule.
Avery’s vision was large, promising 5,000 cars a day on U.S. 66 once it was paved. “‘We designed Route 66 as the most important highway in the U.S. and it will carry more traffic than any other road in America,’ he told the eager group.”
They invited the towns from Chicago to Los Angeles to send representatives to Tulsa in February for a meeting to organize the U.S. 66 Highway Association:
Together, these promotion-minded business leaders wrote bylaws that allowed for a general membership with an annual five-dollar fee for individuals. An annual meeting would be held the second week of March. They elected John Woodruff as the first president of the U.S. 66 Highway Association, and Cy was selected as the state vice president from Oklahoma. [Kelly, pages 189-191]
Although Avery and Piepmeier were no longer in office, the idea that Frank Davis had floated about changing the number, U.S. 66, assigned to the southwest end of the National Old Trails Road was doomed by the new highway that had been designed to carry a single number for its entire route between Chicago and Los Angeles.
The Monuments
When Mrs. Arline Trigg Moss took over as National Chairman of D.A.R.’s National Old Trails Road Committee, she abandoned the ideas pursued by her predecessors. Their ideas were worthy, she acknowledged, but had never been achieved — and their prospects had not improved with the coming of the U.S. numbered highway system. Mrs. Moss’s new idea was bigger in scope, and required her to coordinate a nationwide effort that could have gone off-track in many ways. Now, she was to see the first of her Pioneer Woman monuments dedicated in Springfield, Ohio, on July 4, 1928.
On March 6, 1928, the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Charles L. Bauer, held a special concert to raise the $2,000 needed for the shipping cost. At an admission charge of 50 cents, 3,000 people filled Memorial Hall. Additional funds came from private donations:
When the monument arrived in Springfield from the sculpturing firm on railroad car, it was crated and packed so deeply in sand that only the sunbonnet was visible. Because they had the necessary equipment, a Xenia firm transported it to the Ohio Masonic Home grounds — the exact spot where the Federal Government had stopped paying for the National Road in 1839.
(For several years, Illinois and Missouri had vied for the crossing of the Mississippi River — Illinois for Alton, Missouri for St. Louis. The debate continued for so many years that it was never resolved before Congress stopped funding the work. For that reason, the Cumberland or National Road ended in Vandalia, then the capital of Illinois.)
Mrs. Moss and Judge Truman were present on July 4 at 2 p.m. for dedication of the first of the 12 monuments. The program included:
Ohio State Masonic Home Boys Band
Salute to the Flag — Lagonda Chapter, D.A.R., Mrs. C. C. Cory, Regent
Springfield Vocal Octette — “America Triumphant”
Invocation — Rev. J. B. Markward, D.D., Pastor First Lutheran Church
Raising the Flag — Wm. C. Shultis, Commander of the American Legion, officiating
Unveiling of the Madonna Statue by Gen. J. Warren Keifer, Ex-Speaker of the
National House of Representatives
“Star Spangled Banner” — Ohio State Masonic Home Boys Band
Presentation of the Statue to Springfield and Lagonda Chapter, D.A.R., and Dedication
Address, Mrs. John Trigg Moss, St. Louis, Missouri, Chairman of the Old
Trails Road Committee, N.S.D.A.R.
Addresses Accepting the Statue
For Springfield, Clark County, and the Ohio Masonic Order;
Mr. John B. McGrew
For Lagonda Chapter, D.A.R., Mrs. Frank W. Harford, Retiring Regent,
Lagonda Chapter, D.A.R.
Octette — “We’ll Keep Old Glory Flying”
Greetings from Mrs. Walter P. Tobel, Hamilton, Ohio, Vice-State Regent, Ohio D.A.R.
Addresses — “Inception of the National Road” — Hon. Chas. H. Lewis, Columbus, Ohio
“The National Old Trails Road” — Judge Harry S. Truman, Kansas City,
Missouri, President, National Old Trails Road Association
Unveiling Poem — “Mrs. Lida Keck Wiggins’
Octette — “Medley of American Airs”
Address — Judge D. D. Woodmansee, Cincinnati, Ohio
Benediction — Rev. Paul Ewing Davies, Pastor, Oakland Presbyterian Church
(General Keifer had been Speaker of the House during the 47th Congress — December 5, 1881-March 4, 1883.) For its inscriptions, the local D.A.R. chapter chose the following on one of the side panels:
THE NATIONAL ROAD
COMPLETED BY THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
TO THIS POINT IN 1839
FROM THIS POINT WESTWARD
BUILT BY THE STATES THROUGH
WHICH IT PASSES
The side panels contained the following:
THREE MILES SOUTHWEST OF HERE
GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK
COMMANDING
KENTUCKY FRONTIERSMEN
VANQUISHED THE SHAWNEE
CONFEDERACY AUGUST 8, 1780
THUS OPENING THE
NORTHWEST TERRITORY [Bauer, pages 19-26]
Lida Keck-Wiggins, who read the unveiling poem, recalled the event:
When the sites had all been chosen suitable unveiling exercises were held, and at each of these Mrs. Moss was present. A sentence used by her on one occasion is revelatory of her own conception of the ethical and patriotic significance of the Old Trails Road and of other National Trails. She said: “The trails are the autograph of a nation written across the face of a continent.” I stood at the side of Arline Nichols Moss when at Springfield, Ohio, the veil dropped which revealed the first of the completed Madonnas to be placed. I felt her tremble.
I saw tears well in her eyes. I whispered to her “I know just how you feel.” She smiled then and said: “Pardon me, but you cannot imagine how much it means to me to see my dream of the blessed Madonna of the Trail a reality at last.” I replied as I pressed her hand, “I think I understand, dear,” and I am sure that all who read this will likewise realize what it meant to see the glorious Figure silhouette itself against the blue of a July sky, and to observe that somehow it cast over every heart present the spell of the covered wagon days! [Quoted in Bauer, pages 80-81]
When U.S. 40 was widened to four lanes in 1956-1957, the State paid $22,257 to move the Madonna of the Trail monument east to the entrance of the Snyder Park Golf Course. “The state restored the statue, cleaned and wired it. Since 1957 the Springfield Park Board has maintained the site of the monument.” [Bauer, page 27]
One D.A.R. member, Edna Massman, who attended the dedication ceremony, recalled at the time of Bauer’s book, “that Harry Truman was so pleasant.” [Bauer, page 28]
The claim that Springfield was the end point for Federal involvement in the National or Cumberland Road was not accurate, although it had a grain of truth. Even before the monument was shipped from St. Louis to Springfield, a question was raised about the claim. Vandalia’s N. C. Gochenour wrote to Representative William W. Arnold about the topic:
You have probably heard of the movement of the D.A.R. to erect twelve statues of the figures representing the Pioneer Woman, one of which is to be erected in each of the 12 States through which the National Old Trails road passes. Vandalia has been selected as the site for one of these memorials, and the monument is to be placed in the Court House yard.
The D.A.R. leave part of the space on the monument for suitable wording, and a part of the space is allotted to the local community. In examining one of the monuments which will be erected in Ohio, and which is now in St. Louis, we find the wording prepared for the monument by that locality is to the effect that at that point in Ohio was the terminus of the National Road so far as the government work was concerned. We do not believe this is true. All of the accounts that we have of the matter show that Vandalia marked the end of the work done by the United States Government, and we have never read of anything showing that the State of Illinois contributed in any way to this project.
We hate to bother you about this matter, but if you can confirm our belief that Vandalia marks this spot, we will appreciate it very much. We have always been led to believe that the bridge over the Kaskaskia River was built by the United States Government contractors. Any information that you giver us will help us to put a truthful historical statement on the monument. Can you send this request to some authority in Washington who can give it prompt attention?
Representative Arnold forwarded the letter to BPR on June 19, seeking information on the exact termination spot of government work on the National Road.
P. St. John Wilson, serving as Acting Chief of Bureau, replied on June 22. After the introductory paragraph, he wrote:
There is no data available at present in the Bureau of Public Roads which will enable us to satisfactorily decide the point in question, and I am taking the liberty of referring your letter, together with a copy of Mr. Gochenour’s, to the Chief, Corps of Engineers,
U.S. Army, with the thought that possibly through the records on file in his office an authoritative decision may be reached.
West of the Ohio River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been responsible for construction of the National Road. (East of the river, the Department of the Treasury had overseen initial construction of the road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, then in Virginia; the Corps took responsibility for the Cumberland-to-Wheeling segment after the Treasury Department completed it.) Thus, Wilson was forwarding the inquiry to the most likely source of an answer. How the Corps handled the inquiry is not known.
After the National Road reached Wheeling, Congress decided to extend the road west through the State capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to the Mississippi River, eventually with a continuation to Jefferson City, Missouri. Corps engineers surveyed an alignment for the road on as straight a line as possible linking the State capitals, including in Missouri. The expectation was that the Corps would employ contractors to build the most modern type of pavement known at the time — the crushed rock macadam style pavement — all the way to Jefferson City. During the 1830s, Congress engaged in lengthy debates about continuing to fund the work, with the result that macadam pavement made it only as far as Springfield, Ohio.
That was not, however, the end of Federal activity on the road. Contractors continued building it to a much lower construction standard (grading, possibly removing tree stumps, building culverts and bridges in some cases, and applying a layer of stones in some areas) in the expectation that Congress would eventually fund completion of the road to full macadam standards. In Indiana and Illinois, the road never progressed beyond a graded dirt track while under Federal control. This Corps work continued all the way to Gallatin Street in front of the State House in Vandalia — and ended there. The final appropriation for the National Road, signed by President Martin Van Buren on May 25, 1838, included funds for the road in Ohio and Indiana, as well as $9,000 for the road in Illinois.
In 1848, Congress ceded all rights and privileges associated with the road to the State of Indiana, and did the same in 1856 for the segment in Illinois. Years of local debate over whether the road would continue to cross the river at St. Louis, Missouri, or Alton, Illinois, delayed construction beyond that point even as the railroad had begun its dominance of surface transportation. When Congress ceased appropriations for the work, the Corps ended its activities on the road. [America’s Highways 1776-1976, pages 21-22; Stewart, U.S. 40, page 116]
Thus, the claim on the Springfield monument is accurate only if an asterisk were possible to explain that construction to full macadam standards ended in Springfield, but Federal funds were employed beyond that point, with the States having to complete the work, usually by chartering companies to operate it as a toll road.
More Monuments
WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA
Three days later, on July 7, 1928, the Wheeling monument was dedicated. Its inscriptions:
TO THE PIONEER MOTHERS
OF OUR MOUNTAIN STATE
WHOSE COURAGE, OPTIMISM, LOVE
AND SACRIFICE MADE POSSIBLE
THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY
THAT UNITED THE EAST AND WESTBY THE AUTHORITY OF THE
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
AND CHIEFLY THROUGH
THE STATESMANSHIP OF
HENRY CLAY
THIS ROAD WAS MADE POSSIBLE
IN 1806
Bauer explained:
The monument at Wheeling, West Virginia, dedicated July 7, 1928, stands on the National Highway (now U.S. 40) with the Washington Elm to the right. It was located in Wheeling because Colonel Moses Shepherd, a contractor on the original National Road lived there. Henry Clay was a frequent visitor in the home of the Shepherds, so they erected a monument on their lawn to him. The home became known as Monument Place and is about a mile from the site of the Madonna. The Shrine owns Monument Place now . . . . The address before unveiling was by Mr. H. S. Truman and the dedicatory address was by Mrs. John Trigg Moss.
The statue faces west, overlooking the Park Apartments across U.S. 40.
The site includes a marker at the edge of a short, curved drive in front of the statue:
THE NATIONAL PIKE
The National Pike, called
“Old Cumberland Road,” was
Started in 1811 and used to
Wheeling in 1817 and by mail
coaches from Washington by
1818. Most of it followed the
Nemacolin Path and Braddock’s
Road from Cumberland, Md.
In addition, a later addition to the memorial area was a large elm tree with a marker:
This American Elm Tree
Planted by Old Trails Society
N. S. D. A. R. — Nov. 18, 1939 [Bauer, pages 102-103]
In September 1928, five monuments were dedicated.
COUNCIL GROVE, KANSAS
On September 7, the monument in Council Grove, Kansas:
Council Grove is considered the most historic town on the Santa Fe Trail in Kansas. The monument was placed in old Santa Fe Camp Ground, now Madonna Park, in the center of the main street with the Post Office Oak at the end.
The unique inscriptions read:
1825-1866 TRAILSMEN
CAMPED ON THE SPOT.
1847-1873 KAW INDIANS
LIVED HERE.
1847 — FIRST WHITE SETTLER
SETH HAYS
1847 COUNCIL GROVE
A TRADING POSTHERE, “EAST MET WEST”
WHEN THE ‘OLD SANTA FE TRAIL’
WAS ESTABLISHED AUGUST 10, 1825
AT A COUNCIL BETWEEN THE
UNITED STATES COMMISSIONERS
AND OSAGE INDIANS
Bauer explained:
In July of 1964, a flag pole to the right of monument, presented by the conservation department of the State Society, was dedicated by the Kansas State Society of the National Society. The following June a bronze plaque at the base of the flag pole was dedicated by a group of distinguished State and National officers of D.A.R. That same year the Council Grove Chapter received an award at Continental Congress for the best slide program of the year and, with the money, placed two cement benches beside the Madonna. [Bauer, 103-104]
LEXINGTON, MISSOURI
The Missouri monument was dedicated in Lexington on September 17, 1928:
In Missouri, the Madonna overlooks the Missouri River from the east bank at Lexington, known as Missouri’s “History City.” Here the three-day battle of Lexington in the Civil War was waged in September 1861. Lexington was so named by pioneers from Lexington, Kentucky in 1822 and also is the namesake of the first battle of the Revolutionary War — Lexington, Massachusetts — the site of the “shot heard ‘round the world.”
In Lexington pack mules and ox teams, caravans of pack ponies, long trains of ox-drawn wagons, picturesque teamsters and wagon bosses were a common sight in the 1830’s and 40’s when they took off for Santa Fe and the southwest. These pioneer freights were founders of the famous Pony Express to Mexico and California . . . .
In the center of history, our Madonna of the Trail was dedicated on September 17, 1928, by the Honourable Harry S. Truman, then presiding judge of neighboring Jackson County. This date marked the 67th anniversary of the battle of Lexington of the Civil War and was some 153 years after the Lexington battle of the Revolutionary War.
The Lexington D.A.R. chose the two inscriptions:
LEXINGTON
SETTLED IN 1820 BY
VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY
PIONEERS
EARLY TERMINUS OF
RIVER TRANSPORTATION
STARTING POINT ON THE
WESTERN TRAIL OF THE
PACK PONY AND OX CARTJOHN, JAMES AND ROBERT AULL
RUSSELL MAJORS & WADDEL
DONIPHAN
PIONEERS — TRADERS
SOLDIERS — CITIZENS
OF LEXINGTON
WHO GAVE VALIANT SERVICE
TO THE WINNING OF THE WEST [Bauer, pages 104-105]
LAMAR, COLORADO
The Colorado monument in Lamar was dedicated on September 24, 1928. With Trinidad,
La Junta, and Las Animas competing for the monument, “the Fort Wm. Bent DAR Chapter, the Lamar Chamber of Commerce and other civic organizations worked very hard for the monument”:
Once the monument was awarded to Lamar, a Mr. Steward, without any charge for his labor, erected it on the corner of South Main and Beach Streets next to the Chamber of Commerce. The 72 yards of muslin veiling the monument were donated to Ellis Island. As honored guests at the biggest celebration — a red letter day — Lamar has ever had, were the living pioneer mothers of Southern Colorado . . . .
It was placed at Big Timbers, which took its name from large Cottonwood trees extending up and down the Arkansas River, over an area 20 miles long and three quarters of a mile wide. Big Timbers was the finest camp after Council Grove and a haven for travelers and the Indians.
Many celebrities attended the dedication, and Harry S., Truman was the speaker.
The dedication program included a poem that “very simply describes the great migration along all the trails that penetrated our great country”:
“I HEAR THE TREAD OF PIONEERS
OF NATIONS YET TO BE
THE FIRST LOW WASH OF WAVES WHERE SOON
SHALL ROLL A HUMAN SEA”
The two unique inscriptions read:
IN COMMEMORATION OF
“BIG TIMBERS” EXTENDING
EASTWARD AND WESTWARD
ALONG ARKANSAS RIVER
APPROXIMATELY TWENTY MILES
AND OF BENT’S NEW FORT
LATER FORT WISE, 1852-1866A PLACE OF HISTORICAL LORE
NOTED FOR INDIAN LODGES;
SHELTER FROM STORM AND HEAT;
FOOD SUPPLY FOR BEAST;
BIVOUAC FOR EXPEDITIONS;
SCENE OF MANY COUNCILS. [Bauer, pages 62-64, 105-106]
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
Three days later, on September 27, the Albuquerque monument was dedicated. Initially, Santa Fe, the destination of the Santa Fe Trail, had the historical edge for the monument in New Mexico, but it went to Albuquerque because:
The Madonna did not fit in with the Spanish Art in Santa Fe
and
The Lew Wallace DAR Chapter came up with the necessary money to bring the monument to Albuquerque.
(Lew Wallace was a lawyer, a Union General during the Civil War, a Territorial Governor of New Mexico (1878-1881), a diplomat, and an author (best known today for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.)
The Lew Wallace Chapter dedicated the New Mexico Madonna at Albuquerque on September 27, 1928, in McClellan Park, located in the 800 block of Fourth Street, N.W. A memory box was placed in the base of the monument containing names of donors to the fund. Many celebrities attended the luncheon which was served at the Franciscan Hotel. Lew Wallace Chapter hosted guests to “The First American” in natural showgrounds with the Sandia Mountains as a backdrop:
INTO THE PRIMITIVE WEST
FACE UPSWUNG TOWARD THE SUN,
BRAVELY SHE CAME,
HER CHILDREN BESIDE HER.
HERE SHE MADE A HOME.
BEAUTIFUL PIONEER MOTHER!TO THE PIONEER MOTHER OF AMERICA
THROUGH WHOSE COURAGE AND SACRIFICE
THE DESERT HAS BLOSSOMED
THE CAMP BECAME A HOME,
THE BLAZED TRAIL THE THOROUGHFARE.
The program included a speech by Harry S. Truman. [Bauer, pages 67-69, 106]
SPRINGERVILLE, ARIZONA
The final dedication in September 1928 was in Springerville, Arizona. By then, the main route of the National Old Trails Road was part of U.S. 66 from Gallup, New Mexico, to Holbrook, Arizona. Bauer noted that, “The nearest DAR chapter is one hundred-fifty miles away in Flagstaff.” Nevertheless, Springerville, with a population under 600 at the time, secured the monument based on the city’s long record of support for the National Old Trails Road Association.
The inscriptions chosen for Springerville were:
CORONADO
PASSED HERE IN 1540
HE CAME TO SEEK GOLD —
BUT FOUND FAMEA TRIBUTE TO THE PIONEERS
OF ARIZONA AND THE SOUTHWEST’
WHO TROD THIS GROUND
AND BRAVED THE DANGERS
OF THE APACHE
AND OTHER WARRIOR TRIBES
The first inscription, Bauer wrote, “calls attention to the fact that, long before the English established any settlement on the Eastern Seaboard, the Spanish were most active in Mexico and the southwestern part of the United States.” In November 1519, Hernando Cortez had arrived in Mexico and quickly conquered the Aztec nation and confiscated large amounts of gold. In February 1540, Spanish leaders dispatched Francisco Vasquez de Coronado to locate what rumors said were seven wealthy cities to the north. They found no such cities.
Judge Truman was among the speakers. [Bauer, pages 71-72]
VANDALIA, ILLINOIS
Dedication of the monument in Vandalia, Illinois, took place on October 26, 1928. During the period when the United States Government was involved with extension of the Cumberland Road west of the Ohio River at Wheeling, the law required that it reach each State capital: Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Vandalia, Illinois; and across the river, Jefferson City, Missouri. Although the Federal Government did not complete the road, some limited construction work was done as far as Vandalia, and surveying continued to Jefferson City, pending a decision on where the road would cross the Mississippi River. As noted earlier, Congress ended funding for the project before a choice had been made.
The inscriptions read:
AT VANDALIA, ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
MEMBER OF ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE,
FIRST FORMULATED
THOSE BASIC HIGH PRINCIPLES
OF FREEDOM AND JUSTICE
WHICH GAVE THE SLAVES
A LIBERATOR,
THE UNION A SAVIOR.THE CUMBERLKAND ROAD,
BUILT BY
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT,
WAS AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS
AND APPROVED BY
THOMAS JEFFERSON IN 1806.
VANDALIA MARKS THE
WESTERN TERMINUS.
The monument was placed on the northwest corner of the old Capitol Square:
Between the monument and present U.S. 40 is a small marker telling the story of the Cumberland Road:
“Vandalia was the western terminus of the Cumberland or National Road which extended eighty feet wide for 591 miles from Cumberland, Maryland, through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Construction by the Federal government began in 1811 and ceased in 1838, the approximate cost being seven million dollars.”
Mrs. A. M. White of Old State Capitol Chapter in Vandalia has designed a seven inch replica of the Madonna in plaster of Paris which she sells as a souvenir of Vandalia. Her profits go to the Old State Capitol Chapter treasury. It is her desire to place figurines in other “Trails” towns when she can make enough available.
Harry Truman addressed the crowd at the dedication. [Bauer, pages 106-107]
RICHMOND, INDIANA
Bauer discussed the rivalry for the monument in Indiana:
There was a three-chapter rivalry for Indiana’s Madonna of the Trail: Richmond, Indianapolis, and Terre Haute. So certain was Indianapolis of being chosen that a year before the dedication, the Rotogravure section of The Indianapolis Star printed a picture of Leimbach working on a monument with the caption: “…to be placed in Indianapolis by N.S.D.A.R.” But a year and a day later, Sunday, October 28, 1928, an immense crowd gathered at the entrance of Glen Miller Park for Indiana’s dedication in Richmond.
Colonel John Ford Miller, a railroad executive, bought the land and sold it to the city to operate as a park that opened in 1885. Glen Miller park was named after the healthy water in the springs of Glen Miller:
The spot selected is across the present U.S. 40 from where the first toll gate in Indiana stood — “Gateway to the West” — and near the site of the earliest burying ground in Wayne County. Mrs. Moss gave an eloquent address, and Mr. Truman was in attendance. The Sons of Veterans Drum and Bugle Corps took part, depicting “The Spirit of ’76.” The local brass foundry donated a 4x8x8 inch memory box, filled with photographs, clippings, and two sonnets by the Honourable William Dudley Foulke (read at the dedication): “The Settler’s Wife and “The National Old Trails Road.”
Mrs. Frederick S. Bates, chapter chairman of the project, died before its completion, so her daughter was asked to draw the veil which was made of canvas. The monument stands amid pine trees. On the north of the base is inscribed a poem written by Richmond’s Chapter Regent Mrs. J. F. Hornaday and selected by the National Committee:
A NATION’S HIGHWAY!
ONCE A WILDERNESS TRAIL
OVER WHICH HARDY PIONEERS
MADE THEIR PERILOUS WAY
SEEKING NEW HOMES
IN THE DENSE FORESTS
OF THE GREAT NORTH-WEST.
The south face read:
THE FIRST TOLL-GATE
IN INDIANA
STOOD NEAR THIS SITE
ON THE NATIONAL ROAD
Bauer described the scene:
The Monument is illuminated at night by one ray of light. On snowy winter days, the Madonna, when approached from the east, seems to be wearing a heavy white shawl and bonnet. Three phrases used about the Madonna at her dedication are most interesting in relating the next dedication: (1) “… in its setting of green it is an object of art”; (2) “… magnificent piece of sculpture”; (3) “…artistic monument in no small degree.”
Truman, who had helped pick the site, was scheduled to attend the dedication ceremony, but a few days earlier, he had to cancel. He was, he explained, “very busily engaged in politics.” [Algeo, Matthew, Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip, Chicago Review Press, 2009, pages 197-198]
WASHINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA
Many States had multiple candidates for the monument, but Pennsylvania also had controversy, as Bauer explained:
The story in Pennsylvania, which climaxed in a dedication in Washington County on December 8, 1928, is one of controversy. Washington and Fayette counties were contenders for the location of Pennsylvania’s Madonna. Arguments were taken to Harrisburg where politics were powerful and for a while it looked as if Pennsylvania would be the only state along N.O.T.R. without a Madonna monument. Finally, it was awarded to Washington County and a site on the Court House lawn at Main Street and West Cherry Avenue was selected in the town of Washington. However, the State Art Commission of Pennsylvania refused to approve because “the monument was not a work of art.” The Commission has power to control placing of anything on publicly owned property in Pennsylvania.
The second site suggested was on the lawn of the Elks Home on East Maiden Street, but it was not logical to place a monument of one fraternal organization on property of another. The third suggestion was on the campus of Washington and Jefferson College, but this was off the route of N.O.T.R.
Chairman James P. Eagleson approached President Charles E. MacGinnis and his Board of Nemacolin Country Club, who subsequently donated a plot of ground across the highway from the entrance to their club house. Next was the problem of $2,500 for freight, handling, erection, landscaping, and dedication expense. Mr. Eagleson devised a 50-50 club (there were 50 members, each giving $50), and without prior planning at their one meeting, there were 25 men and 25 women, each of whom received an engraved certificate. The balance after dedication was held for future repairs. A memory box with the names of the 50 women and men was placed in the base of the monument, and is to be opened by the Washington County Chapter of D.A.R. on December 8, 1978.
Local D.A.R. members feel that the action of the State Arts Commission was really a blessing because no more desirable site could be used than this on the north side of National Pike about a mile east of the town of Beallstown, which was laid out September 13, 1819 and has enjoyed interesting history on National Pike. [Bauer, pages 108-109]
In 1981, Harriet Branton of the Observer-Reporter of Washington, Pennsylvania, looked back on these events:
The tenth monument was destined for erection on the grounds of the Washington County Courthouse in Washington, Pa. All seemed to be in order until the Pennsylvania State Art Commission got into the act. As early as March 1928 the Commission had issued a preliminary opinion that it was “unable to find in the figure submitted for the proposed memorial . . . such qualities as would justify its erection in the State of Pennsylvania.” In September the Art Commission announced its final decision: it disapproved of the statue’s erection on public property because “the figure submitted has not sufficient artistic merit to justify its erection . . . .” Since the Commission had the power of veto over monuments to be placed on public grounds, it became necessary for the DAR and the Old Trails Road Association to look for another site.
In the meantime the flap over the project so distressed Miss Nancy J. Hall, Regent of the Washington County Chapter of the DAR, that Julian Millard of the Pennsylvania State Art Commission felt compelled to write a letter of apology. In it he expressed his sorrow that adverse publicity about the matter had caused her concern and he assured her that the Commission had no intention of interfering with the erection of the statue on private property; the Commission had, in fact, “no further interest in the disposition of the monument.”
What to do? Well, two influential Washington men came to the rescue. It so happened that James P. Eagleson, a local attorney, was vice-president of the National Old Trails Association; indeed, he had been instrumental all along in obtaining the statue for erection in Washington County. Faced with rejection of the courthouse site, Eagleson set about acquiring private land and went to Charles E. McGinnis, president of the Nemacolin Country Club, for help.
McGinnis and the club’s board of directors enthusiastically agreed to help. They donated a small parcel of land on U.S. 40, “which turned out to be more suitable than the original courthouse location anyway.”
Eagleson organized the Pioneer Fifty-Fifty Club to finance the $2,500 fee for installation and dedication:
Fifty people were recruited to contribute $50 each to cover expenses involved in the erection of the monument. When the list was closed it turned out that exactly 25 men and 25 women had subscribed as members of the select group. Since the mission of the club had been explained as the erection of a “suitable tribute” to pioneer mothers and an effort to place them on an equal basis with pioneer fathers, it was regarded as a curious coincidence that the supporters of the “Fifty-Fifty” club were equally divided between men and women.
The club’s only meeting was held before a banquet the night before dedication of the monument.
The monument arrived by train to Scenery Hill on Saturday, December 1, 1928. On Monday and Tuesday, the 10-foot Madonna of the Trail was hoisted onto its 8-foot base:
On Friday evening a gala banquet was held at the Nemacolin Country Club. Violin and piano music was provided by members of the Washington High School Orchestra, and among the honored guests were Dr. Louis J. Lyle and Miss Margaret Bureau. Miss Bureau, 89 years old, was a retired piano teacher who had been a member of the Washington County Chapter of the DAR for 35 years. She was presented with a bouquet of roses (one for each year of membership) by Miss Hall. Others in attendance at the banquet were Mr. Eagleson, Mrs. N. Howland Brown, Pennsylvania State Regent of the DAR, and Mrs. Moss.
On the following afternoon, a blustery December day, formal dedication ceremonies were held in the clubhouse at 2 o’clock. A capacity crowd of 500 listened with interest to a program presided over by Mr. Eaglson. It included music by the American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps; vocal selections by Glenn P. and William I. Carson, accompanied by Miss Margaret B. Acheson; and addresses by Mrs. Alfred J. Brosseau, President-General of the National Society of the DAR; and Mrs. Moss. The program also listed a speech by Judge Truman; unfortunately he was unable to attend and his letter of regret was read by Eagleson.
After the ceremony, the guests went to the site opposite the entrance on U.S. 40 to the golf club, “where the canvas-shrouded monument awaited its unveiling”:
Miss Ethel Boughner of Uniontown, chairman of the Pennsylvania DAR Old Trails Committee, officiated and the statue was formally accepted by Miss Hall.
The inscriptions chosen for the monument were:
ERECTED IN
NINETEEN HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT
IN WASHINGTON COUNTY
PENNSYLVANIA
THE OLDEST COUNTY WEST OF
THE ALLEGHENY MOUNTAINS
NAMED FOR THE FATHER
OF OUR COUNTRYON THIS HISTORIC SPOT
THE HUNTING GROUND
OF THE FRIENDLY INDIAN
NEMACOLIN
THIS MONUMENT
IS ERECTED AND DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF OUR
PIONEER MOTHERS
Branton concluded her article:
While there was some controversy about the artistic merits of the statue, it has come to be regarded as an appropriate likeness and descriptive tribute to pioneer women. It also provided Washington County with another interesting historic site, and the inscriptions on the monument remind visitors of the area’s rich heritage.
Her article was accompanied by a large photograph of the monument on the day of its dedication, with five participants in the ceremony in their heavy coats: James P. Eagleson, Mrs. N. Howland Brown, Ethel Boughner, Mrs. Alfred J. Brosseau, and Mrs. John Trigg Moss. [Branton, Harriet, “Madonna of the Trail,” Observer-Reporter, November 7, 1981]
According to Bauer, the monument was rededicated in October 1978 at the Nemacolin Country Club. [Bauer, page 44] The statue was restored and rededicated in 1990. The Washington County Chapter of the D.A.R. is responsible for maintenance of the monument.
UPLAND, CALIFORNIA
The original location for the California monument was San Bernardino. However, the city did not like the proposed site and refused to pay the $2,500 fee for erection and dedication. Instead, the monument was awarded to Upland, in San Bernardino County near Los Angeles County.
The monument was dedicated on February 1, 1929, at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and Foothill Boulevard (the address is 1010 Euclid Avenue), as Bauer described:
The site on which she stands is a double drive parkway (encompassing a bridle path) lined with pepper, grevilla and evergreen trees . . . .
The dedication day was somewhat disappointing in that it rained (in California), but the parade and rededication ceremony went on . . . . On February 1, 1929, a pageantry of progress was depicted in an impressive parade. First came Indians on horseback with luggage slung between poles dragged behind an animal. Then same Spanish and American modes of travel including covered wagons and stage coaches and finally the automobile and aeroplane.
Unveiling the statue was 81-year old Mrs. Carolyn Emily Cook who had come to California from Brighton, Washington County, Iowa, by ox-cart and covered wagon when she was three years old. Her mother was the only woman in the party of one hundred “covered wagon” pioneers. As Mrs. Cook pulled the covering away from the statue, one hundred carrier pigeons were released.
Mr. John Steven McGroarty of California gave the dedication speech. Participating in the ceremony was Mrs. Theodore Jesse Hoover, sister-in-law of President Herbert Hoover.
On February 9, 10 and 11, 1979, the California State with the San Antonio Chapter as the hostess chapter, and assisted by citizens of Upland, held a three-day celebration to rededicate this statue. The time capsule from the base of the statue was removed and the contents displayed at the Civic Center. Items for a new capsule were reviewed, then sealed in the cornerstone to stay for another fifty years.
Our California Madonna stands facing south. Mt. Baldy of the San Gabriel Mountains looms behind her as the present Highway 66 makes its way ahead of her to the blue Pacific where writer Betty Simmons in a soliloquy imagines her dreaming of throwing off her heavy boots to splash barefooted in its tide and laughing as she burrows her toes into the gritty sand to face the challenge of stinging salt spray. [Bauer, pages 72-73, 110-111]
The road on which the monument stands has had several names:
First it was the Mojave Indian Trail established as early as 1776. Then as the Spanish came into the area, it became known as The Spanish Trail. American explorers, settlers, hunters, traders and gold seekers renamed it The Santa Fe Trail.
The inscription on the east reads:
THIS TRAIL, TROD BY
THE PADRES IN SPANISH
DAYS, BECAME
UNDER MEXICAN RULE,
THE ROAD CONNECTING
SAN BERNARDINO AND
LOS ANGELES, LATER
THE AMERICAN POST ROAD.
In July, 1769, Spanish Missionary Father Junipero M. J. Serra founded the first of twenty-one Franciscan Missions in California. Taking its name from Saint James of Alcala, Spain, seat of a great university, this mission was known as Mission San Diego de Alcala. It was from this mission that the city of San Diego took its name.
On the west, the inscription reads:
OVER THIS TRAIL
NOVEMBER 1826,
JEDEDIAH SMITH, SEEKING
A RIVER FLOWING WESTWARD,
LED A BAND OF SIXTEEN
TRAPPERS, THE FIRST
AMERICANS TO ENTER
CALIFORNIA OVERLAND
Smith was one of the best known of the era’s mountain men. “In 1831, he was killed by Indians as he led a caravan over the Santa Fe Trail.”
According to the Route 66 Times Website:
This statue has seen some tough times, having been knocked down by a falling tree in 1957 and years later being damaged so significantly by an earthquake in 1991 that she had to be taken down and restored. The restoration went well and she's back on the pedestal where she belongs paying tribute to the courage, strength, and resilience of women everywhere. [http://route66times.com/l/ca/upland-madonna-of-the-trails.htm]
The D.A.R.’s 1929 Continental Congress
Mrs. Moss scheduled dedication of the final Madonna of the Trail monument to coincide with the Thirty-Eighth Continental Congress of the National Society of the D.A.R., April 15-20, 1929. During the congress, Mrs. Alfred J. Brosseau, President General of the National Society D.A.R., introduced Mrs. Moss as “our very hard-working chairman who has achieved a great thing for our own city. (Applause.)”
Mrs. Moss began her report to the congress on the work of the Committee on National Old Trails Road by proclaiming:
“Excelsior” is the triumphant cry of The National Old Trails Road Committee for 1929. Our dreams of almost 20 years have come true, and our vision has crystallized into a real fact! It has been the privilege of your present National Chairman to serve you on this Committee for the past 6 years, and it is a matter of pride that she, a native-born Missouri woman, should bring to a very successful close a program that was begun practically 20 years ago in Missouri by a group of women who, loving the history of the past, formed a committee to locate the old Santa Fe Trail in Missouri.
She recalled the committee’s history, beginning with its formation by Mrs. John Van Brunt, who “was influential in securing an appropriation from the State of Missouri to mark this Trail with suitable boulders or monuments”:
Encouraged by the splendid achievement of this small group, the State Regent of Missouri, Mrs. R. B. Oliver, appointed a Missouri D.A.R. Good Roads Committee, with Miss Elizabeth Gentry as Chairman, assigning as their work the locating, exploiting, and advertising of the old historic roads and as far as possible to see that the new automobile roads being built in the State were upon old historic trails. Reports show that this Good Roads Committee came into being at the psychological moment. The State of Missouri was about to select a route and build a cross-state highway. Three roads had been surveyed. Our Committee opened a campaign appealing to a group — to the State Highway Engineer, to commercial clubs, to men of influence in the county through which the trail runs. They marked the route for miles, at first with flags nailed to fence posts and trees. Through this Committee, the route selected for the Missouri Cross-State Highway was the Boone’s Lick Road from St. Louis to Old Franklin, and the Santa Fe Trail from that point to Kansas City. A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by the Honorable A. P. Borland, of Kansas City, on January 15, 1912, to:
Provide a National Ocean to Ocean Highway over the Pioneer Trails of the nation, thus making a continuous trunk line on to California; another branch was to lead from Gardner, Kansas through Kearney, Nebraska to Olympia, Washington, also to aid the State through which the highway therein described as the National Old Trails Road, shall run, in extending, constructing, rebuilding and repairing same.
This bill received the ardent and enthusiastic support of the Daughters of Missouri, and interest in the work of studying old trails or traces spread through the rank and file of the Daughters of the American Revolution like wild-fire, and the President General, Mrs. Matthew T. Scott, appointed the first National Committee, with Miss Elizabeth B. Gentry as Chairman . . . .
In 1913, the National Chairman, Miss Gentry, reported briefly that “the object of the Old Trails Road Committee is to get the Old Trails Road designated by Congress as the National Highway, and the first road to receive Federal aid.” She reported the organization of a society of men known as “The National Old Trails Road Association” that stated in its by-laws that it had organized “to assist the D. A.R. to establish the Old Trails Road as a National Highway,” and that organization of men adopted the Daughters of the American Revolution route and the name we had given it, “The Old Trails Road.” It was this year that the Chairman suggested the red, white, and blue bands to be painted on telephone poles to mark the National Highway with the national colors. Many miles of this marking was accomplished by the D.A.R. women with paint-pots and brushes, and motorists used the slogan, “Follow the Flag of the D.A.R.”
Mrs. Moss recalled the committee’s work over the years through 1924, when she became National Chairman and the congress adopted a resolution to erect “one marker of dignified and pretentious proportions” in each of the States through which the National Old Trails Road passed:
The resolution was adopted unanimously, and with this program in view your National Chairman set to work.
In 1925, Mrs. Moss reported having conferred with Judge J. M. Lowe, National President of the National Old Trails Road Association, who gave hearty and enthusiastic approval to the new plan the Daughters had voted to follow.
She discussed the process for raising the necessary funds:
In 1927, your National Chairman reported progress in the committee work that sounds as though she had “Put on Seven-League Boots” and was leaping forward! The National Old Trails Road Monument Fund to date had reached the sum of $12,414.03, with unpaid pledges of $493.60 still to hear from. It had long been a vision of your National Chairman to erect a monument, not a marker, and your National Chairman caught the vision of a Pioneer Mother clad in homespun, clasping her babe to her breast — the figure of a mother showing fortitude, perseverance, and energy in her bearing — one in the act of going forward, expressing firm determination — her face to be of strong character, beauty, and gentleness — the face of a mother who realized her responsibilities and trusted in God. This vision was suggested to your National Chairman by the picture of the Indian squaw carrying her papoose upon her back which was a piece of statuary at the World’s Fair in St. Louis. And after months of carrying this vision in her mind, your National Chairman, collaborating with her son, John Trigg Moss, Jr., who is a graduate of Princeton University, an artist and architect in the Graduate College there, worked out the vision into the design for our monument. Mr. A. Leimbach, a sculptor of St. Louis, willingly took the ideas as presented to him, catching the real spirit of our dreams, and fashioned them into a very beautiful and a very representative and distinctive memorial to those Pioneer Mothers of ours whose granite virtues were so outstandingly great.
She recalled displaying a miniature statue during the 1928 congress:
The most important matter that was presented to you in the report of 1927 was that the National Old Trails Road Association had guaranteed very material aid and cooperation to the National Old Trails Road Committee of our Society for the marking of the National road, providing the monument be entirely different from the boulder or tombstone variety. It was this generous offer of The National Old Trails Road Association, through its president, Judge H. S. Truman, and its Secretary, Mr. Frank A. Davis, that made it possible for us to proceed with our program, for, while the sum of our fund would cover the cost of the twelve monuments, it would not, by any means, cover the cost of freight or erection, the expense of which was equal to, if not more than, the cost of the monuments. The Algonite Stone Company is located in St. Louis, from which central point these monuments would have to be shipped, and it was not until this offer of the National Old Trails Road Association was accepted by vote of Congress, April 1927, that the project could be considered.
The cost of erecting the monuments varied according to the distances from the shipping-point and the nature of the celebration held at the time of the unveiling. The National Old Trails Road Association took the lead in the publicity, and working in connection with chambers of commerce, civic clubs and federations, business men’s clubs, such as Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, and in many places the masonic groups and church federations in these different sites respectively, they secured financial backing to cover the cost of freight, erecting monuments, committee expenses, programs, etc. It has cost approximately $30,000 dollars to deliver these monuments to their destinations and erect them on their respective sites. Our society has not been called upon to pay any of this amount, except in certain localities where the Daughters preferred to take the lead in their community during the celebration.
The fund for the monuments had raised $13,170.73 from a 10-cent per capita voluntary contribution from all chapters of the organization:
Thus, the records show that we have able to erect a National Memorial costing approximately $50,000 with an outlay of but a little over $13,000, the actual cost of the 12 monuments. Like anything else of its kind, the initial cost of the first monument was greater in proportion to the remainder of the series, and we would not have been able to secure a group of 12 monuments for anything like the amount of $12,000 had it not been that they were alike. That the Daughters could have the able assistance of the National Old Trails Road Association proved a very fortunate circumstance, indeed, for their marking program.
During the hot summer days of 1927, your National Chairman watched the figure of the mother and her children grow under the skilled hands of the sculptor. The idea of your National Chairman and her son, in thinking out this design, was to have a figure that would be compact and solid, and that would look better from a distance than close up, and that is the great outstanding feature of our statue of the Pioneer Mother and Children that has been commented upon so favorably everywhere. The children are clasped to the figure of the mother, with no jutting parts to be broken or marred easily. It at once gives the idea of something solid and substantial, something that will stand through all ages and not be easily destroyed.
In 1927-1928, the National Old Trails Road Association sent bulletins to every town along the National Old Trails Road “announcing the fact that our Society was ready to erect their memorial monuments on the main Ocean to Ocean Highway, and requested each community that felt it had a claim as a point of historical interest to send in their data.” The applications were due by August 20, 1927. Many States had more than one application — “Kansas, with great enthusiasm, had 10 towns enter the contest.” She explained the selection process:
A committee of 7 decided on the location or site in each state respectively. Your National Chairman accompanied the President of the National Old Trails Road Association, Judge Harry S. Truman, and Mr. Frank A., Davis, Secretary, all the way west to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and east as far as Bethesda, Maryland. Close to 5,000 miles were covered by your National Chairman in the interest of locating these sites.
After listing the cities selected for the monument, she continued:
The actual plot of ground in each one of these places upon which the Pioneer Mother Monument stands is in every instance the best location the community had to offer. In 5 places these monuments stand at points of advantage in beautiful city parks. In the other 7 places, the most advantageous location to be secured along the highway has been given to our monument. In all but one of the respective towns a flood light has been placed to display the “Madonna” at night. In the meantime, much publicity was given to the project, many pictures and articles were presented in papers and magazines from one end of the country to the other, bringing very favorable comment from all sections. Full pages of dignified publicity were given to the program, not only in the 12 states receiving one of the monuments, but east and west, north and south, the pictures and stories copied to the value of many thousands of dollars, had we been obliged to pay for them. But this program, though idealistic and inspirational, seemed to appeal to the innermost heart of the thinking men in the publicity world, and their editorials and comments far and wide show that they believe, like the 12 stones set up by Joshua in the River of Jordan, “It is a fitting memorial to those who have gone before.”
(Mrs. Moss was referring to Joshua 4:6-7: “that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.”)
With the unanimous consent of the society’s executive committee, Mrs. Moss had taken out letters patent and copyright on the design of the monument:
Your National Chairman, through Rippey & Kingsland, Patent Lawyers of St. Louis, patented the design, and a certificate of copyright was granted to your National Chairman December 4, 1928. This copyright and patent design was turned over immediately to the National Society by your National Chairman, Mrs. John Trigg Moss, for all time.
The full responsibilities on her over the past year hit her as “an overwhelming realization.” For example:
One of the most difficult things to decide upon was the date upon which to hold the dedicatory ceremonies. May 30th was the first date, given to Ohio, but owing to the fact that not enough time had been allowed for transportation and erection, etc., this schedule could not be followed out, and the first dedication was postponed to July 4, 1928, and the second one three days later, July 7, was held in Wheeling, West Virginia. When one stood by these immense figures, it seemed almost an impossibility to transport them safely from one end of the country to the other, and it was with fear and trepidation that your National Chairman saw the first one go out of St. Louis. However, everything can be made a work of art, and if you could have seen this Mother cradled in her great cradle of sand, fully protected and safe-guarded in every way, you would have understood how she would safely reach the farthest distance without a broken bone.
She cited the dates of the dedications, adding that while in Springerville, Arizona, for the dedication, “the Committee proceeded on to California for a hurried trip to definitely decide the location of the site for the monument in California”:
The week of April 19, 1929, during the 38th Continental Congress, we shall dedicate the twelfth link of our Great National Shrine in Bethesda, Maryland, thus fulfilling our pledge given years ago and bringing to a final close one of the most dignified and representative pieces of memorial work ever attempted by any organizations.
Over 10,000 invitations had been sent out for the dedications in the name of the National Society of the D.A.R. and the National Old Trails Road Association — to National Officers, State Regents, and National Chairman. “These invitations were sent directly from the home of your National Chairman, and with pictures, papers, booklets, and maps, it would be a conservative figure to estimate that between 15,000 and 16,000 pieces of mail have been sent out from her office during the past year.”
So many “perplexing problems” presented themselves, and “it grew to such gigantic proportions that at times it seemed an impossibility,” but the task was finished. She had crossed the country “from one end of the continent to the other” practically three times. “We have reached the goal; we have marked in a very wonderful way our main National highway, 3,050 miles across our land.”
She concluded her speech:
May our Madonna of the Trail create an atmosphere of love and peace, for surely no memorial was ever erected with higher ideals, nor a greater love of nation, or a more tender sympathy for mankind than this beautiful Madonna of ours. May she speak to you always as she does to me:
To the Honor and Glory of the
Great Motherhood of the past,
I stand . . . A Sacred Shrine.May all who pass within the
Shadow of my Form, pause
Awhile, and Understand the Faith,
the ideals, and the real Inner
Beauty of Soul of those Mothers
of Old, as they Passed Down the
Great Homing Trail of the Nation.--A. B. N. Moss
Respectfully submitted,
Arline B. N. Moss
(Mrs. John Trigg Moss),
Chairman.
[Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Continental Congress of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1929, pages 175-185]
The Dedications
After her report to the continental congress, Mrs. Moss submitted a report summarizing the 11 dedications of the monuments that had taken place before the annual congress.
To a great extent, she let the towns involved set the dates for the ceremonies. “The wishes of the men of the National Old Trails Road Association and their ability to attend these celebrations on the certain dates, were always first taken into consideration.” The inscriptions were another factor:
The inscriptions on the two sides of the pedestal base of each monument had to be submitted and passed upon, allowing from 3 to 4 weeks for the base to be made after the inscriptions were accepted.
The matter of freight delivery was a very serious part of the entire program, as your National Chairman did not want the monument delivered too far ahead of time and still, on the other hand, it had to be delivered early enough to allow delays in transit or for any possible breakage which was very likely to happen. Your National Chairman considers it a very unusual record to make that, of these 12 figures and pedestal bases, not one was broken in transit.
She commented on each site, beginning with the “very fine ceremonies” dedicating the monument in Springfield, Ohio. Columbus, Dayton, Hebron, and Zanesville had sought the monument. All but Dayton, which was not on the National Old Trails Road, were qualified, but Springfield secured the honor:
General J. Warren Keifer pulled the cord that revealed the first statue to the public gaze. The knoll on which the statue was erected is part of the State Masonic Home grounds and was donated for that purpose by the trustees of the Home. The statue marked the spot approximately where the National Pike, as constructed by the National Government ended, and also is in reasonably close distance to the site of the “birth of Tecumseh” and the battlefield of Piqua where the Shawnee power was broken by George Rogers Clark, August 8, 1870. The Government had surveyed the road westward into Missouri and had even built a few culverts and bridges beyond the point in question, but the building of the road progressed no further than the knoll, a short distance west of the city of Springfield . . . because of the bitter debates in Congress over the means by which the maintenance of the road might be kept up and whether the road might be used for military or other service in case on internal warfare among the states, for “state’s rights” figured mightily then in National affairs. A compromise was effected and Congress agreed to turn the much contested National Highway over to the states for further completion and maintenance. The spot likewise is only 3 miles from the site of the George Rogers Clark monument erected a few years ago by the State of Ohio on the ground where the Battle of Piqua was fought, August 8, 1780. The importance of this battle, which is the only battle of the Revolutionary War fought on Ohio soil, concerned the opening of the Northwest Territory to American colonization.
She summarized the ceremony, noting that Judge Truman had delivered a short address. She added:
The spirit of cooperation was very fine and the interest was rife. One of the most interesting features connected with the erection of the statue was the placing of a strong metal box made of copper 11x8x8 inches in size, hermetically sealed within the pedestal before the statue was placed thereon. Miss Zimmerman, local Chairman of the National Old Trails Road Committee, to whom the National Chairman is greatly indebted for her splendid cooperation and wonderful assistance, filled the box with records, newspapers, clippings, photographs, histories of the city and county, and city directory, a telephone directory, year books of Lagonda chapter, coins, and various other things which would be of interest in the future . . . .
An interesting part of the day’s program was the taking of some moving picture films of the ceremony, for which Mrs. Teresa Adelsperger, Chairman of Better Films, was responsible . . . .
The festivities of the long summer’s day were concluded by a tea given by Lagonda chapter at the home of Mrs. P. O. Crabill to all of the out-of-town guests . . . .
Lagonda chapter feels grateful in every way that she secured this lovely monument for Springfield. It is a beautiful work of art, majestic in its completion, inspiring us through its simplicity and its humble realism to a recognition of the dignity, the worth, and at length the grandeur of the deeds wrought by our Pioneer Mothers . . . .
It is fitting that the Ohio monument should be placed in Springfield. It is a matter of no small pride to the Daughters of the American Revolution to have been able to take the lead in the erection of this great Ocean to Ocean memorial to the Pioneer Mothers of our Nation.
The second monument was dedicated in Wheeling, West Virginia, on July 7, 1928:
The choice of the site was particularly fortunate, facing, as it does, the National Road just to the right of the entrance to Wheeling Municipal Park within a semi-circular wall of stone work and backed by the beautiful shrubbery of flowering plants. In the background may be seen the surrounding municipal golf course and many beautiful forest trees.
The West Virginia chapters paid their quota of 10c per capital and over a total of $230.15 to the fund for the purpose of providing these monuments. The completion of the monument in West Virginia was made possible by the generous contributions and earnest efforts of the Wheeling Park Commission, as well as the many individuals who were sincerely interested in this completion. These patriotic citizens gave splendid cooperation to the Wheeling to the Wheeling chapter, and assisted them in arranging for the beautiful site and the program and came forward in a very generous way to finance the expenses of freight, foundation, and the cost of placing the monument, amounting to approximately $3,200.
She pointed out the role of Judge Truman, Secretary Davis, and George W. Lutz, vice-president of the National Old Trails Road Association in selecting the site:
Mr. Lutz, being a very active and patriotic citizen of Wheeling, was the prime mover in the program for the monument and contributed a beautiful flag and flagpole and large urns to be placed in front of the monument, amounting to the sum of $125. The Wheeling chapter assumed the other expenses to the sum of $302.
During the ceremony:
The monument was unveiled by Mrs. Edward F. Hartley, National Vice Chairman for West Virginia, the National Old Trails Road Committee and Mrs. John Trigg Moss, National Chairman of the National Old Trails Road Committee, then made a very inspiring and interesting address of dedication. Mr. George Lutz made a short address and Mr. Frank A. Davis represented the National Old Trails Road Association and gave an address . . . .
With the representation at the dedication exercises of Wheeling’s civic, patriotic and fraternal organizations, and the attendance of a vast throng of citizens interested in the placing of an impressive monument at the city’s beautiful public park, it is probable that a record will be set in local annals for a greater display of general interest in public ceremonials.
In the event that future generations become bent on historical exploration, the sealed lead box which was placed in the base of the monument will prove a rich find. In heavy black envelopes are stored clippings and data relative to the history of West Virginia, Wheeling and Ohio County, its industries, its monuments and institutions, a copy of the city charter, photographs of the sponsors of the project, together with information and statistics, National, State, City and of the Daughters.
Wheeling chapter has always been specially interested in the marking of the National Old Trails Road, and in 1922 the chapter placed 5 bronze tablets at historic spots along the 16 miles of road in West Virginia.
In Kansas, interest in securing the monument was intense, with 10 towns competing, but Council Grove “was chosen because of its great historic lore and a willingness to formulate plans for a memorial park situated at the entrance to Council Grove.” She added:
Nothing had ever come to this town that induced a better civic spirit and patriotic endeavor than this project of the National Society. The site given to the Daughters was at one time under water and required thousands of truck-loads of earth taken from the river bank to build up to the required level for a park. Citizens and farmers volunteered their time and labor, their teams and trucks, and worked day after day to get the site in readiness for the monument.
The plot of ground has been filled in to the height of over 6 feet and approximately 10,000 loads of dirt were moved by different groups of interested citizens. This meant hard work on their part, but records show that one day 225 farmers, 50 teams and 10 trucks moved 711 loads of earth one mile distance to “Madonna Park,” while the band played from under the famous 300-year old “Custer Elm” tree. Dinner was served at noon to the 292, and families came from far and near to make the work of the day “a picnic.” With a civic spirit such as this, and led by the Mayor of Council Grove, Mr. W. L. Young, a man of indomitable energy and intensely interested in the project, is it any wonder that Council Grove, Kansas, recorded the largest gathering to assemble at any of the dedications? Between ten and fifteen thousand people from all over that section of the country witnessed the unveiling of the statue of the Madonna of the Trail at Council Grove, Kansas, Friday, September 7, 1928.
(General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry camped around the tree in 1867 while patrolling the Santa Fe Trail. The tree died of Dutch Elm disease in the 1970s. [The Historical Marker Database, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=44938])
She described the “vivid spectacle” of the ceremony:
Four hundred years of Kansas history was reenacted in a pageant of pioneer times. Indians brilliantly beaded and painted, Spanish adventurers in shining armour, soberly garbed priests, trappers, and hardy bands of pioneers, a colorful pageant depicting successive epochs in the Kansas history, moved slowly down a crowd-lined Main Street. It was a procession of successive dilapidated prairie schooners and vehicles of ancient lineage. Coronado and helmeted Spaniards, Father Padilla and Don Pedro were recalled. The “‘49ers,” the pioneer settlers, the birth of the Santa Fe Trail, the old Mission, “Custer Elm,” the Pony Express, the Brown Jug School, and occasionally a gorgeously handsome modern float made a vivid splash of color in the procession. Pioneer wagons bore eloquent signs “Kansas or Bust” and “Busted.” The old Prairie Schooner rumbled along with a coop of cackling chickens wired to the rear of the wagon filled with a family of small children.
The contrast in transportation of the past was introduced by one who rode a bicycle of the early ’80’s. Sprinkled through the pageant were Fort Riley’s soldiers, trappers, scouts, veterans from the Blue and Gray Armies of the Civil War, clowns, and slaves in chains — all portraying incidents and periods in the history of the west. A dramatic stage coach “hold up” was possibly the best feature of the historical parade of the picturesque Pioneer Day. The stage coach in which the National Chairman, Mrs. John Trigg Moss, and Judge Harry S. Truman, President of the National Old Trails Road Association, were riding with Mayor W. L. Young, was “held up” in true frontiersman style.
After a recitation of the monument’s unique inscriptions, the report continued:
Historic and current matter was sealed in the memory box to be opened each quarter or half of a century with public ceremony. In the box is placed a list of all donors to the monument fund, names of all volunteers, workers on the park site, and the history of the original townsite, compiled by R. M. Armstrong, current newspapers, centennials, booklets, telephone directories, photographs, etc.
The Daughters of the American Revolution have been deeded the plot of ground with a 70-foot frontage on Union Street paving to add to the city’s site for the National Old Trails Road monument. The County Commissioner agreed to deed the Daughters 70 feet bordering the City Park site on the north. The gift is for the purpose of adding to the Madonna of the Trail sites, and is to remain property of the Society forever free from taxes, if used for the purpose given.
The fourth monument was dedicated in Lexington, Missouri, “with very impressive and befitting ceremonies” on September 17, 1928:
The entire day was devoted to the ceremonies of the monument erection, and the unveiling of the 5 bronze tablets marking historical sites in Lexington. Throngs of visitors and local citizens witnessed the ceremony and enjoyed the various activities of the day. The weather was ideal for comfort and enjoyment.
Fifty out of 85 Daughters of the American Revolution chapters in Missouri had representatives at the dedication . . . . A colorful parade was the first feature of the day’s program at 10 o’clock promptly. The parade marshalled by Sanford Seller, Jr., represented the evolution of transportation from pioneer days of the era of ancient stage coach times down to the present day of the perfected motor car and truck. Prizes for floats, decorated cars, and old vehicles, were awarded . . . .
The Indians, one of the most realistic groups in the parade, were noteworthy for their picturesque dress, war paint and blanketed ponies upon which they were mounted. This group was contributed by the Red Men Lodge. Lexington Boys’ Band and the Richmond Boys’ Band added materially to the parade. The Wentworth Military Academy, led by the Wentworth Band, marched in the parade in highly approved fashion. The decoration of the bronze tablets marking the historic spot was held at 11 o’clock with Dr. C. T. Ryland, President of the Rotary Club, presiding . . . .
A luncheon was held at the Lexington High School building at noon with 1,146 guests in attendance. Music was rendered and Mrs. John Trigg Moss, Chairman, the National Old Trails Road Committee, and Mrs. Henry Chiles of Lexington, were presented with beautiful framed pictures of the Pioneer Mother monument taken by Miss Alice Spencer. The unveiling ceremonies were at 2 o’clock at the monument site. They were preceded by the presentation of a flag and flag-pole by the American Legion.
Among the speakers was Mrs. Moss, who made the “dedicatory address following the formal unveiling of the monument by Colonel George P. Venable, 92, a veteran of the Civil War.” Judge Truman “delivered an address on the National Old Trails Road.” After the ceremony, a “public reception and dance was held at the Lexington High School at 8 o’clock Monday evening”:
Very beautiful souvenir booklets on the National Old Trails Road and “The Part Played by Lexington in the Westward Movement,” written by Mr. B. M. Little, were given to the guests in attendance that day. This little brochure is a very splendid piece of work and it is a cherished souvenir. Many out-of-town guests were entertained, among whom were Miss Elizabeth Gentry of Kansas City and Mrs. John Van Brunt of Belmont, former National Chairman of the National Old Trails Road Committee. The National Committee for the Old Trails Road work was established in 1911, under the leadership of Miss Elizabeth Gentry, a Missouri woman, and it is fitting that the work of this Pioneer Committee should be brought to a successful culmination.
Missouri has 302 miles of the National Old Trails Road across State. Facing westward into the setting sun toward which the brave and shining eyes of many a Pioneer Mother must have looked — striving to pierce the far away distances — the Madonna of the Trail stands sentinel at the graceful curve of State Highway No. 13 as it enters Lexington from the North and West . . . .
A copper box was placed in the monument holding articles that will be of value in years to come: pictures, books, clippings, newspapers, directories, stamps, etc.
Many beautiful social functions were given to honor the guests of the town that day. Mrs. Chiles gave a beautiful dinner in honor of Mrs. John Trigg Moss, National Chairman.
The location committee had chosen Lamar, Colorado, to receive the monument that was dedicated on September 24, 1928. “The Committee on ‘Selection of Sites’ in search for points of historical interest on the National Old Trails Road decided for Lamar when their two citizens, Senator A. N. Parrish and Mr. L. M. Markham related in detail the story of historical incidents that tool place in ‘The Big Timbers.’” After reprinting the inscriptions, she explained:
The legend is that here in “Big Timbers” white men smoked pipes of peace after blazing the way for a nation over “The Trail” and found that the Indians had chosen the camp after Council Grove had been left behind. The most famous trading post within the limits of Colorado was Fort William Bent on the Arkansas River, and here the trappers and Indians came with their furs. Here in the “Big Timbers” Major Fitzgerald established his agency trading with the Indians and by his proper handling of the “Children of the Plains,” saved the lives of settlers and turned the Red Men toward the path of useful citizenship.
Colonel John C. Fremont, in his trip across the plains, reported that he found 600 Indian Lodges located, in the “Big Timbers” and there the Pioneer Mother and her brood found, because of the Arkansas undrained by irrigation, protection from the rays of the sun and from the chilly blasts of winter.
The site upon which the monument stands in Lamar was given by the Santa Fe Railroad, and is adjacent to the Santa Fe station. Several officials of the Santa Fe Railroad were in attendance at the dedication and were introduced from the platform. September 24th was considered to be “the red letter day” in the history of the community. One of the largest crowds ever known to gather in Lamar came for the entire day’s program, beginning with the parade at the noon hour and ending with a ball at night. Many “mementoes of the past” were brought forth and displayed in the show windows of Lamar merchants. Beautiful old relics including pieces of old china, old glassware, quilts and pictures, beautiful old spinning wheels and many beautiful gowns were displayed. The parade depicting pioneer scenes was witnessed by thousands of people and the first cars in the parade carried the Pioneer Mothers of Southeast Colorado.
In the first car rode Mrs. Felix Cain, who had been in Colorado since 1865, accompanied by Mrs. A. D. Hudnall of Las Animas, who came to Colorado when 6 months old. Three Civil War veterans followed the Pioneer Mothers, namely: A. Deeter, Commander Sheets and P. S. Lynch. The Spanish American War and World War veterans came next and hosts of grade and high school children followed the veterans. The yoke of oxen and the Prairie Schooner attracted attention from young and old, as the driver, walking alongside prods his team along the “Dusty Trail” — the Santa Fe Trail. Then came the Pioneer Prospector with his two burros with pack, shovel, gold pan and grub. The different steps in the progress of the country were portrayed by the team of horses, the cattlemen on horseback, and the Santa Fe Railways, miniature reproductions of “Chief.” The Pioneer Mothers at her spinning wheel; the Pioneer people on horseback: the float showing progress in lighting from the torch through the candle and old lamp stages to the modern electric light stage. The progress in road building from the day of horses and plows to the day of grader and tractor: the parade closing with a long procession of the last made, high powered, shining new automobiles. In fact everything but the aeroplane was in the parade.
A very touching and beautiful sight was presented when, during the program, the Pioneer Mothers were seated about the Madonna of the Trail and Mrs. Felix Cain was presented to the audience and was given a beautiful spray of flowers.
Frank Davis, representing the National Old Trails Road Association, “opened the program” and Mrs. Moss delivered the dedicatory address. In addition:
On the morning of the 24th of September, upon the arrival in the city of Mrs. John Trigg Moss of St. Louis and the representatives of the National Old Trails Road Association, a short memorial service was held at Fairmount Cemetery for the late Senator A. N. Parrish, who so ably represented his town in the first committee to select the site.
(On May 23, 1928, the Fleagle Gang, headed by Jake and Ralph Fleagle, robbed the First National Bank of Lamar. State Senator Parrish, the bank’s 77-year old president, went into his office, grabbed a Colt .45 he called “Old Betsy,” and opened fire on the robbers, shooting a member of the gang, Howard Royston, in the face. In the ensuing gunfire, Senator Parrish and his son John, who worked at the bank, were killed. The robbers left with $10,664 in cash, $12,400 in Liberty Bonds, and almost $200,000 in commercial paper. After a second gun battle with local authorities on the way out of town, the gang escaped to a farm in Kansas where they tricked a doctor into a house call to treat Royston’s wound. They then killed the doctor. The Fleagle Gang’s robbery became known to history because a single fingerprint on the doctor’s car led authorities to the killers — the first time a fingerprint enabled the Bureau of Investigation, later known as the FBI, to identify suspects and secure their conviction. Three of the four robbers were sentenced to execution by hanging. The fourth, Jake Fleagle, died in a shootout while fleeing arrest.)
The monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was unveiled on September 27, 1928. The city, with a population of 30,000, was “a thoroughly modern city” and was the largest city in the State:
It has beautiful homes and many attractions and points of real interest. It is located in the heart of the Indian country. From the time the National Old Trails Road enters this section of the country it traverses a region of intense interest as its many civic wonders greet the eye of the traveler. It is a land of limitless panoramas.
During the week of the dedication, “the fiesta known as ‘The First Americans’ was taking place at the Fairgrounds”:
The pageantry of “Early American Pioneers” gathered there for protection. No word picture can describe the color that greeted the eyes of the visitors in Albuquerque at this time. The vivid Red Chili and all the colors of the rainbow against the adobe background was beautiful indeed, and formed a perfect setting. Several thousand Indians were there for this celebration, and picturesque, indeed, were the garbs of the different tribes as they surged back and forth on the streets with gay colored flags and bunting.
The site selected in Albuquerque is in McClellan Park in the pretty residential section of the town facing directly upon the old Santa Fe. Trail. New Mexico has 450 miles of this old trail, entering the State to the northeast and going directly south to Albuquerque, turning west a short distance beyond.
Impressive ceremonies marked the unveiling of the monument. The procession to the park was led by the Indian School Band. Then came a car of Pioneer Mothers, including Mrs. J. A. Maloy, who has since passed into the Great Beyond. This was followed by cars bearing the distinguished city officials, officers of the Daughters of the American Revolution, members and citizens. More than 2,000 people surrounded the Park and listened to the interesting program with eyes aglisten as the real significance of the monument was presented to them.
Mrs. Moss delivered the dedicatory address; Frank Davis, representing the National Old Trails Road, spoke; and Mayor Clyde Tingley accepted the monument for the city:
In the memory box were placed documents of interest to the Daughters, as well as those of interest to the community. All the names of those who cooperated in financing the movement were placed in the base of the monument in the memory box, this being done by Mrs. Homer Ward, Vice-Chairman, National Old Trails Road Committee, after which Mrs. George K. Angle, retiring State Regent, and Mrs. Ada M. Bittner unveiled the monument.
The dedication took place at 11 o’clock, followed by a luncheon, hosted by the Lew Wallace Chapter, for honored guests. After lunch, the guests were taken to the Fairgrounds to see the “First Americans” performances.
Local newspapers had held a contest to select the inscriptions on the sides of the monument, both honoring the Pioneer Mother.
Two days later, on September 29, Mrs. Moss, Davis, and others were in Springerville to dedicate Arizona’s monument. Although Springerville had been part of the main line of the National Old Trails Road from the start, it had become a bypass now that the Gallup-Holbrook road had been approved and included in U.S. 66, while Springerville was on U.S. 70. Mrs. Moss explained:
Out in the Western country, “The Land of Enchantment,” distances are great and what would seem a long trip to the Easterner is “but a short side trip from the main Highway” to the Westerner. This was exemplified when Springerville, Arizona, put forth every effort to secure the Pioneer Mother monument for the State for its very own. Springerville is located on the National Old Trails Road at the intersection of the Coronado Trail, 95 miles from the railroad. Several towns entered the contest and presented briefs to the Committee, but a State-wide influence was brought to bear for Springerville. The Governor of Arizona [Governor Hunt] added his plea for Springerville to hundreds of others . . . .
The site upon which the monument was erected in Springerville is located at the junction of the National Old Trails Road highway, and the famous Coronado Trail from Clifton, the approximate route traveled by Coronado and his men in 1540 on their way from New Mexico to the Seven City of Cibola.
Splendid publicity was given to the program throughout the entire country for several months beforehand and on September 29, 1928, all roads seemed to lead to this White Mountain City, for hundreds of people came from every direction all over the State to attend this celebration. Springerville was found to be dressed in gala attire and every possible thing was done to show the true spirit of western hospitality to the honored guests. Every part of the program was given in true western style, even to the applause when the cowboys used their “six shooters” to applaud effectively.
The ceremony opened with a covered wagon parade at 2 o’clock led by Governor Hunt of Arizona on a saddled burro leading a burro with a pack as he did years ago when he entered the State as a young man for the first time. Included in the parade were many covered wagons, cowboys, pack trains, etc., led by the Round Valley and Roosevelt Indian bands. This parade stopped in front of the reviewing stand, and the participants grouped about in colorful array to take part in the program.
As usual, Mrs. Moss delivered the dedicatory address while Davis spoke on behalf of the National Old Trails Road Association. Governor Hunt gave an address titled “A Tribute to the Pioneer Mothers.” Gustav Becker of Springerville, “the honored patriarch and pioneer citizen of the town,” accepted the dedicatory address while Mrs. Frederick Winn of Phoenix accept the monument for the National Society:
The program continued on through the evening, with a very delightful musical program from five to six. And at eight o’clock, the Apache Indians gave their weird Devil Dance, which lasted an hour. Though the Apaches have been in the past a warlike tribe, today, of course, the Apaches are peaceful, although they were the last of the southwest Indians to be subdued and placed upon their reservation. A dance at the High School that evening completed the day’s program.
The members of the Committee remained in Springerville several days, the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Becker, and when you have the good fortune to visit Springerville, go prepared to enjoy yourself every minute, and with the idea in mind that you will find something new to fascinate and interest you constantly.
The dedication in Vandalia, Illinois, took place a few weeks later on October 26, 1928, “the hundredth anniversary of the completion of the western terminus of the Old National Road (Illinois has 172 miles of this Old Trails Road across State).” The monument was installed on the grounds of the old State House, dating to the days when Vandalia was the capital of the State:
The dedication of the “Madonna of the Trail” memorial in Illinois was a celebration in song and pageantry that Illinois will long remember. From all sections within the State and from surrounding States came the members of our National Society, and from the farms and villages of surrounding counties came the people that massed before the old State Capitol and the monument, in a throng that is estimated between ten and fifteen thousand.
The amplifying truck was set in place, the business houses were closed, and upon platforms erected for the purpose, entertainments were staged during the morning hours. Daughters of the American Revolution were registered from Indiana, Missouri, Louisiana, Florida, California, Arizona, and Texas, and the District of Columbia as well as hundreds from Illinois.
The hour for the program was sounded by a stirring march from the Boy Scout band, and Miss Columbia and her court, drawn by four white horses, followed as the first float. Behind the float marched “The Spirit of ’76” in wigs and cockades, followed by a stage coach bearing Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas in whose company rode the National Chairman of the National Old Trails Road [Committee], Mrs. John Trigg Moss. Indians on their ponies in war bonnets and paint; the frontiersmen, the trappers, the old time fiddlers, and approximately 1,000 school children in the guise of Indians formed a big chorus at the monument.
Joseph C. Burschi, president of the Chamber of Commerce, presided during the program. He related the history of the foundation of Vandalia, on the spot where the hunters shot deer, of the arrival of the Ernst Colony from Germany in 1820, and the arrival of the State Officers from Caskaskia with the territorial records.” Frank Davis “recounted the history of the old road.” Mrs. Moss gave the dedicatory address. Burschi accepted the monument for the city, “and Mrs. William J. Sweeney of Rockport, State Regent of Illinois, accepted for D.A.R. and spoke at length of the early history of the country:
A panoramic picture was taken of the crowd and of the participants in the big event.
Following the program, the Benjamin Mills chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of Greenville, was hostess for a reception in the roof garden of the Hotel Evans. They were assisted by the Unalilyi Camp Fire Girls. In the receiving line were many National Officers and State Regents of other States, as well as State Officers of Illinois.
In Richmond, Indiana, the ninth monument was unveiled on October 28, 1928, “with very impressive ceremonies before a large audience and in the presence of a number of State and National officers of our Society.” The monument was erected “at the west entrance to the beautiful Glenn [sic] Miller Park, near which place formerly stood the first toll gate on the National Road in Indiana, and on the site of one of the earliest burial grounds in Eastern Illinois, where the dust of many settlers still rests”:
A background of trees gives an effective setting to the statue which, besides its historical significance, also has artistic merit in no small degree. The Indiana dedication was the only one of the 12 to be held on a Sunday, and the exercises were impressive and dignified as befitted the day.
A luncheon was given at the beautiful new Richmond Leland Hotel at one o’clock honoring all visiting guests.
Guests included Mrs. Moss, Frank Davis, members of the National Old Trails Road Committee, D.A.R. State Regents from Indiana and nearby States, “and officers and Regents from many chapters in Indiana and Ohio”:
The day was very cold and cloudy, but despite the chill of the weather a vast assemblage of people greeting those who drove out following the luncheon and occupied the platform. The program was impressive and inspiring, from the raising of the Flag on the new flag pole to the unveiling of the beautiful figure of our Pioneer Mother by Miss Elizabeth Bates. Miss Bates is the daughter of the late Mrs. Fred S. Bates, who was the Chairman of the local committee of the National Old Trails Road Committee for a number of years, and mainly to the untiring efforts of Mrs. Bates and her interest in having Richmond selected as the site for the statue because of the historical pre-eminence of Wayne County, can be attributed the presence of the statue in Glenn [sic] Miller Park. Beautiful tributes to Mrs. Bates were impressively made throughout the dedication program, and it seems as if the “Madonna of the Trail” in Indiana was dedicated and unveiled in the memory of this loyal woman who worked so diligently to bring this beautiful monument to her home city . . . .
The outstanding part of the program was the address given by our National Chairman, Mrs. John Trigg Moss, who delivered the dedicatory address in a clear ringing voice that could be readily heard by everyone of the several thousand people who composed the vast audience, many hundreds of them standing motionless throughout the address — and, indeed, the entire program.
Frank Davis addressed the crowd for the National Old Trails Road Association. The account concluded:
Mrs. James B. Crankshaw gave a greeting from the Indiana Daughters, and Mrs. James F. Hornaday a eulogy to Mrs. Fred S. Bates, closing with “America the Beautiful” and the benediction. Thus ended the dedicatory service, “and it was truly a service, with a very real and impressive atmosphere of something sacred, almost holy.” The people stood intense with silent expectation as the white canvas was gracefully lifted from the face of the massive figure. When the unveiling was taking place the Sons of Veterans Drum and Bugle Corps came from over the hill playing the “Spirit of ’76.” These men, as they approached in costume and “make up” of the days of ’76, awakened the memories of many of the elderly gentlemen with snow white beards and hair.
Mrs. Hornaday had submitted one of the inscriptions on the base of the monument:
A Nation’s Highway!
Once a wilderness trail
Over which hardy pioneers made their perilous way
Seeking new homes in the dense forests
Of the Great North-west.
She had been present for “practically all of the time during the erection of the monument and it was appropriate that her verse be chosen, not only for sentiment expressed, but as a tribute of appreciation to her for time and effort expended”:
Through the efforts of the National Old Trails Road Association, the total expense incident to the transportation and erection of this mammoth monument memorial was financed by the Rotary Club, the Kiwanis Club, the Lions Club, and the Elks Club, and other local civic groups who were most generous in helping to make this project the great success that it was. Even the White Water chapter, Children of the American Revolution, rendered their loyal service.
The local Brass Foundry donated the heavy solid bronze box 4x8x8 inches for the memory box, which was filled with photographs of those who had any part in the projects, clippings from local newspapers, two sonnets by the Honorable William Dudley Foulke, who was gracious enough to give those two poems during the program of the afternoon. Many other valuable papers were placed in the box, and Mr. John P. Emlie of the local Monument Company took charge of the erection.
The final dedication of the year — the 10th — took place on December 8, 1928, at 2 p.m. in Washington, Pennsylvania. The Cumberland Road, and now the National Old Trails Roads, and more recently U.S. 40, in Pennsylvania was only 82 miles long “entering the State in the southwestern boundary line between Grantsville, Maryland, and Addison, Pennsylvania, taking a northwesterly direction through Uniontown, Brownsville, Beallsville, to Washington, then a southwestern route crossing the border near West Alexander”:
The site chosen for the Pennsylvania monument is very appropriately placed on the Old National Road in Washington County near Beallsville, on land donated by the Nemacolin Country Club. One hundred seventy-nine years ago there lived on the banks of the Monongahela at the mouth of the Dunlaps Creek, Chief Nemacolin, a chieftain of the Delaware tribe of Indians, and it is generally supposed that at one time this chief had a very respectable following of warriors, but at the time the Whites found him there he had very few and they were quite peaceable. It is interesting to follow the history of the old Indian who was known throughout that section of the country as the “Friendly Chief, Nemacolin.”
It seems eminently fitting and proper that the “Madonna of the Trail” should stand guard over the old Turn Pike in this region of Pennsylvania, and particularly over the grounds of this Country Club which takes its name from and in memory of that fine friendly old Delaware Indian who played such an important part in the laying out of what is now known as this National route from “Coast to Coast.”
The report included the resolution Mrs. Moss had received from Mrs. James P. Eagleson, vice-president for Pennsylvania of the National Old Trails Road Association, who headed the Committee on Arrangements for Pennsylvania:
RESOLUTION
Whereas, The National Old Trails Committee of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, have made application to the Nemacolin Country Club, located in Washington County, Pennsylvania, for a site for the location and erection of their memorial designated as the “Madonna of the Trail” statue; and
Whereas, The Board of Governors of said Nemacolin Country Club are desirous of granting said privilege to said Committee;
Therefore, Be It Resolved, by the said Board of Governors of the Nemacolin Country Club in regular meeting assembled that the privilege of location, constructing and maintaining said monument be granted to said Committee on the location chosen and selected on said grounds of the Northern side of said National Road directly opposite to the entrance of driveway to the Country Club grounds and that the necessary grounds be granted to said Committee for the erection and construction of the same, the area of said ground not to exceed one-half acre (1/2 A.) free of cost, this grant to continue so long as the said ground is used and occupied for the purpose herein granted and at the expiration of that time, the same to revert to the Nemacolin Country Club, its successors and assigns, and the proper officers of the Nemacolin Country Club are hereby authorized to execute the necessary agreement in connection with the carrying out of this grant.
The National Old Trails Road Committee, “needless to say,” accepted “this generous offer.”
Mrs. Eagleson’s husband, “with intense interest in the project and patriotic loyalty to his county and state, rendered a splendid service to the Daughters of the American Revolution of Pennsylvania and to the National Committee on the National Old Trails Road:
He organized what is know as the “Madonna of the Trail — Pioneer Fifty-Fifty Club” of Washington County, Pennsylvania. This Club was composed of 50 members paying $50, entitling each member to a life membership paid and non-assessable in the said club. The membership list was closed when 50 members were listed and this charter list was placed in a sealed box with other valuable papers to go down in history as the only club of the kind ever organized with a membership of 50 with full dues of $50 and known as the “Pioneer Fifty-Fifty Club.” A copy of the charter and list of members was sent to the National Chairman, Mrs. John Trigg Moss, and 4 honorary members were presented: one to Mrs. Alfred J. Brosseau, President General, National Society; one to Mrs. N. Howland Brown, State Regent of Pennsylvania; one to Mrs. John Trigg Moss, National Chairman, National Old Trails Road Committee, and the fourth to Judge Harry S. Truman, President of the National Old Trails Road Association. Embossed membership certificates were presented the evening of December 8th at the Washington Hotel, Washington, Pennsylvania, during a very delightful banquet that was given in honor of the visiting guests by the Washington County chapter of Washington, Pennsylvania.
On the day of the dedication the weather was very cold and threatening, but the long automobile journey did not seem to dampen the ardour and enthusiasm of patriotic residents of that section of Pennsylvania.
Due to the inclement weather, the ceremonies were held in the Nemacolin Country Club House. Mrs. Moss gave the dedicatory address, after which Mr. Eagleson accepted the monument on behalf of the Pioneer Fifty-Fifty Club. Miss Nancy Jane Hall, Regent of the Washington County chapter of the D.A.R., “accepted the guardianship of the monument for the local chapter.”
After the ceremonies, the audience was led by the American Legion Drum Corps, to the site of the monument, “where it was unveiled by Miss L. E. Boughner, after which ‘America the Beautiful’ was sung and the benediction by the Reverent H. M. Jenkins of Beallsville completed the day’s program.” Miss Boughner was National Vice-Chairman of the National Old Trails Road Committee.
The 11th monument was dedicated in Upland, California, on February 1, 1929:
The State of California has 302 miles of the Old National Road. The route of the Old Santa Fe Trail guided thousands of the early settlers to California through the valleys and deserts and over the mountains in the early days of the State’s settlement. Upland is a small city large enough for a wonderful civic spirit and strong enough to assume any ambitious civic enterprise. It is a city of 5,000 people in the heart of California’s richest citrus district, 42 miles from Los Angeles . . . .
Ten dedications had taken place in as many States respectively, and it seemed the hand of fate that “Sunny” California should produce the only “rainy day” of all the celebrations. The enthusiasm and splendid spirit of the people were not at all dampened . . . .
Owing to the inclement weather the program could not be carried out as planned. The amplifiers were in place, the platform had been built and everything was in readiness for the complete program at the site of the monument, but the Chairman in charge, Mr. C. E. Kirk, Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, and his committee, deemed it unwise to proceed with the program in the rain.
Nevertheless, the parade took place:
Hundreds of automobiles were parked all along the way and the pageantry of progress from early days to the present was depicted in an impressive parade. First came the development of transit, beginning with Indians on horseback and with luggage slung between poles dragged behind the animals. Then followed the succeeding epochs in transportation including Spanish Colonial and other early American types leading to covered wagon and stage coach, and then the motor car in its various stages from 2 cylinders to 12 and, finally, the aeroplane. Beautiful historic scenes and striking displays were prepared by many committees and organized for the costly float decorations of the parade. Floral decorations, flags and insignia of our Society added colorful charm to the last division of the parage. Chief Standing Bear, hereditary head of the Ogala tribe of the Sioux Nation, was a distinguished visitor and took part in the ceremonies.
Too much admiration cannot be expressed for the wonderful spirit of loyalty and patriotism which prompted the carrying out of so excellent a parade even though it was raining. The disregard of personal comfort and the fine determination to make a success of the entire dedication program showed a marked inheritance of the true pioneer spirit of those of the early days who were being honored.
Addresses, including Mrs. Moss’s dedicatory speech, were delivered in the auditorium of Chaffey High School. Mayor A. H. Johnson accepted the monument for the city:
The site upon which the California monument is erected could hardly be more beautiful. It is located at the intersection of the Old Santa Fe Trail and Euclid Boulevard. This is a double drive highway with a parkway in the center lined with pepper, grevilla, and other beautiful ever-green trees. On each side of the avenue are groves — most of the time displaying the golden fruit of the orange and lemon. Intermingled among the groves are palatial residences and artistic landscapes. What could be more picturesque than this boulevard extending from the base of the hills through Upland to 7 miles south of Ontario?
The memory box was not sealed within the base until Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12th. It contains newspapers, books, coins, and other valuable printed matter. This is placed in the base to be opened February 1, 1979. [Proceedings April 1929, pages 185-207]