Be they Muffler Men, fiberglass Indians, or larger-than-life depictions of country stars like the late Dolly Parton, I’m a sucker for roadside statuary. Richmond, Indiana, has one of the most imposing examples I’ve encountered: standing guard at the entrance to Glen Miller Park is an eighteen-foot monument to the pioneer women who crossed the American wilderness, the Madonna of the Trail. It’s seventeen tons of pioneer mother, baby, and little boy, and you simply can’t miss it.
The idea behind the Madonna of the Trail goes back to about 1909, when a group of Missouri women set out to commemorate the old Santa Fe Trail, a nineteenth-century route that connected Franklin, Missouri, with- you guessed it, Santa Fe, which was then the provincial capital of Mexico1. Three years later, the National Old Trails Road Association was established to promote an automobile route along the old Santa Fe Trail and National Road to ultimately linked New York and Los Angeles2. Future President Harry Truman served as president of the association and worked with the Daughters of the American Revolution to mark the route with boulders and monuments3.
The DAR’s plans were modest at first, intending to install small cast-iron markers along the route. Fortunately, that idea was abandoned in 1924 when the group decided to go big: twelve enormous Madonna of the Trail statues, one for each state crossed by the National Old Trails Road, would be built. The design was approved in 1927, and the monuments were dedicated during 1928 and 1929. Richmond’s Madonna was presented on October 28, 19284.
German-American sculptor August Leimbach designed the statues as symbols of the courage and faith of the pioneer women who participated in America’s westward expansion5. Cast from a poured granite aggregate known as Algonite6, Richmond’s Madonna stands ten feet tall atop a six-foot base and two-foot foundation. Altogether, the monuments weigh about seventeen tons7.
The statue itself depicts a pioneer woman striding forward with a baby tucked against one arm, a child tugging at her dress, and a rifle balanced over the other shoulder as she looks ahead. There’s nothing particularly delicate about Leimbach’s Madonna, and I guess that’s the point: she’s massive, sturdy, and imposing enough to look like she heft seventeen tons to manifest destiny
Of course, nearly a century outside took a toll on Richmond’s Madonna. Most of the twelve statues hadn’t aged gracefully. The repair of Richmond’s statue was directed by Jane Rehl, the DAR’s Indiana State Regent, and the monument was rededicated on October 29, 1988. It was cleaned, resealed, and repaired again ten years later. Then, after the Richmond Madonna celebrated seventy-five years at Glen Miller Park in 2003, it underwent another restoration that included a new “Cherry Cream” coating intended to improve its breathability, color retention, and waterproofing8.
That’s the problem with roadside landmarks like these: once you start paying attention to them, one is never enough. Richmond’s Madonna isn’t some one-off piece of statuary. She’s one member of a twelve-statue family stretched across the old National Old Trails Road, each marking a route that once carried pioneers west and, later, motorists across the country. I’ve accidentally collected three of them already. Maybe it’s time to start keeping track.
Sources Cited
1 Madonna of the Trail (n.d.). Indiana State, Daughters of the American Revolution [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
2 Grey, J. (2018, September 24). Madonnas of the Trail. Down the Road. Web. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
3 (See footnote 1).
4 Madonna of the Trail Statue (n.d.). Daughters of the American Revolution [Washington]. Web. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
5 (See footnote 4).
6 Perazzo, P. (2026, May 17). Stone Quarries and Beyond. Web. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
7 (See footnote 1).
8 (See footnote 1).
