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.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wigwam Motel — 17 mi
  Nineteen concrete teepees on Foothill Boulevard, the last of Frank Redford's Wigwam Villages and still renting rooms.
• Cajon Pass — 20 mi
  The gap the San Andreas tore between two mountain ranges, and the doorway every westbound traveler has used for two centuries.
• Original McDonald's Site — 20 mi
  The corner where two brothers invented fast food, now an unofficial museum the corporation has never blessed.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 26 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.

More markers nearby

• Tapia Adobe (Site of) — 2.3 mi
• Cucamonga Rancho Winery — 2.3 mi
• Site of the Rancho Chino Adobe of Isaac Williams — 9.0 mi
• Yorba-Slaughter Adobe — 12 mi