Madonna of the Trail

Twelve identical statues stand in twelve states, and this is the western one. The Daughters of the American Revolution commissioned them from August Leimbach and set them along the National Old Trails Road in 1929, each on a base inscribed for its own stretch. The subject is a pioneer woman with a child on her hip and a rifle in her arm. The campaign was also, frankly, highway lobbying: a monument every few hundred miles arguing for a paved road across the country.

What the plaque says

N.S.D.A.R. memorial to the pioneer mothers of the covered wagon days. 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. Over this trail, November 1826, Jedediah Smith, seeking a river flowing westward, led a band of sixteen trappers, the first Americans to enter California over land. The National Old Trails Road.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Graber Olive House — 2.0 mi
  The oldest business in Ontario, a cannery of five hundred brine vats — shut since the pandemic and in foreclosure.
• Kaiser Steel Mill Site — 8.7 mi
  The mill that made Fontana a steel town, gave the country Kaiser Permanente, and drew a color line at Base Line Road.
• Planes of Fame Air Museum — 8.7 mi
  On the field where the country smelted its surplus warplanes — and about thirty of the aircraft here still fly.
• Mount Rubidoux — 17 mi
  The mountain all of Riverside walks — and the half-acre at the summit the city sold rather than go to court.

More markers nearby

• Tapia Adobe (Site of) — 2.3 mi
• Cucamonga Rancho Winery — 2.3 mi
• Adobe de Palomares — 5.4 mi
• Temporary Detention Camp for Japanese Americans, Pomona — 6.8 mi