End of the Trail (Wisconsin)

End of the Trail
Location of Shaler Park
End of the Trail (Wisconsin) (the US)
Location Shaler Park
Waupun, Wisconsin
Coordinates 43°38′17″N 88°43′49″W / 43.6380440°N 88.7303854°W / 43.6380440; -88.7303854.
Built 1929
Sculptor James Earl Fraser
NRHP reference # 80000136
Added to NRHP August 29, 1980

The End of the Trail is a sculpture by James Earle Fraser located in Waupun, Wisconsin, United States. It depicts an Native American man hanging limp as his horse comes to the edge of the Pacific Ocean.[1]

Fraser first modeled the subject in 1894. He based it on his experience as a boy in the Dakota Territory. His memoirs state, "as a boy, I remembered an old Dakota trapper saying, 'The Indians will someday be pushed into the Pacific Ocean.'" Later he stated "the idea occurred to me of making an Indian which represented his race reaching the end of the trail, at the edge of the Pacific."[1]

A large plaster version of the work was displayed at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and was awarded a gold medal. Soon prints and photographs of the statue became popular. Fraser sold two sizes of bronze copies starting in 1918.

The statue is a commentary on the damage Euro-American settlement inflicted upon Native Americans. The main figure embodies the suffering and exhaustion of people driven from their native lands.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[2]

History

Plaster sculpture exibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition

The statue in Waupun was sculpted by James Earle Fraser after it was commissioned by Clarence Shaler in 1926.[3] The statue was dedicated on June 23, 1929[4], as a tribute to the Native Americans.[5]

It is a copy cast in bronze of a plaster statue by Fraser that gained attention at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. When the Exposition closed, bronze was not available for casting statues because of World War I and the plaster sculpture was thrown into a mud pit in Marina Park near the site of the Exhibition. In 1919 the sculpture was rescued and moved to Mooney Grove Park, near Visalia, California.[6]

The original was moved from Visalia to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1968, where it was restored and is now on display at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. The City of Visalia received a bronze replica as a replacement.

Many copies of the 1915 statue are on display, including one at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City[1], and another on the campus of Winona State University in Fraser's home town, Winona, Minnesota.

A painting of the statue's image appeared on the original cover of the 1971 album Surf's Up by the Beach Boys.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Vittoria, Shannon (19 February 2014). "End of the Trail, Then and Now". New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  2. ↑ "End of the Trail". Landmark Hunter.com. Retrieved 2012-02-15.
  3. ↑ Shoptaugh, Terry L. (1980). "Nomination Form - End of the Trail". National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  4. ↑ "End of the Trail sculpture". Waupun Info Site. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
  5. ↑ "End of the Trail - Waupun, WI". Waymarking.com. Retrieved 2012-02-15.
  6. ↑ "End of the Trail: Introduction". National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
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