Madonna of the Trail: Twelve Statues, One Message

The Madonna of the Trail statue in Upland, California, is one of twelve identical monuments installed in nineteen twenty-eight and nineteen twenty-nine along the National Old Trails Road, the transcontinental highway that preceded Route Sixty-Six through the Southwest. The Daughters of the American Revolution commissioned the sculptures from German-American artist August Leimbach to commemorate pioneer women who had traveled the overland trails west. Each statue shows a bonneted woman striding forward with a rifle in one arm and a baby in the other, a small child clinging to her skirt.

The series runs from Bethesda, Maryland, to here in Upland, marking the terminal points and key stops of the old road. The Upland monument stands near the original Euclid Avenue, which was the designated end of the National Old Trails Road before the Route Sixty-Six designation reorganized the system. It is among the westernmost markers of the transcontinental road narrative.