Trail's End

At one point in time the Brooklyn Museum took on the task of scavenging decorative architectural pieces from buildings around New York and putting them on display in the garden at the back entrance to the museum. Each item was carefully labeled as to what they were and from what site they were scavenged. At another point in time the museum decided they needed more parking spaces and displaced most of these remnants of the history of New York City by putting them on wooden pallets on a swath of lawn outside the Botanic Gardens and surrounding them with a chain link fence. There they sit today, crumbling away, the reason for their preservation obscured by broken pallets, weeds and neglect. It’s an example of a nice project turned into an eyesore and a rather sad state of affairs. One of the objects has a special resonance for me in that it is a “sort-of” replica of “The End of the Trail,” James Earle Fraser’s “salute” to the American Indian. There is no indication from where this was scavenged.

When I was growing up in the center of the San Joaquin Valley in California there was a small park seven miles to the northeast of my hometown, Tulare, called Mooney Groove. I must have been there a hundred times from babyhood on…it’s even where my high school graduating class held its final social gathering. My memories of Mooney Grove are strange. Along with picnic areas with tables (some covered), there were two or three shaggy, dusty bison penned up in a small corral; it had free ranging peacocks that pierced the air with their haunting cries and it had huge, dark, brooding oak trees scattered randomly about the acreage. And it had the original version of The End of the Trail. To me, even at a fairly early age, it was sad and dusty; the Grove I mean, but the statue was also pretty much a bummer in itself. Look at it. Not exactly joyous.

The End of the Trail is a monumental 18’ plaster sculpture and it was created for the San Francisco 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition by James Earle Fraser (who also designed the Buffalo nickel) to immediate popular acclaim (it received the Expo’s gold medal for sculpture). This sculpture is probably the most recognized symbol of the American West and it was touted, at the time, as a “reverent memorial to a great and valiant people.” Native Americans pretty much tend to differ and view it as a reminder of defeat and subjugation; a position I pretty much agree with. Although brilliant in conception and execution, it is one sad piece of fine art.

The original had been destined to be cast in bronze and placed on Presidio Point overlooking SF Bay but material restrictions during WW1 precluded that destiny. Somehow or other (I can’t seem to find out how the hell this happened) the city of Visalia, CA, obtained the discarded statue in 1920 and put it in Mooney Grove, two miles south of town, where it stood for 48 years, gradually deteriorating. Not to give away any secrets but it was during this time that I became familiar with this statue and, through a score of years, considered it just another piece of furniture to climb in the bleak, dusty environs of Mooney Grove. Even then it was apparent the statue was in bad shape and it seemed to me the only thing they did was add another coat of semi-gloss brown paint once a year, eventually blurring every detail and progressively obscuring its greatness.

I do remember when, in 1968, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City came calling and acquired this original plaster statue and restored it to its original magnificence. I understand it’s a focal point and what you see first when you enter the museum. I’m not sure what Tulare County received in return except that part of the deal was a bronze replica, which now stands in its original spot in Mooney Grove so, at least, the original idea came to fruition, albeit 60 years later. I also remember, in 1968, feeling sort of protective of this statue and wished, at the time, it could have been restored either in place or situated in its original intended spot in SF.

You can buy bronze replicas of The End of the Trail from the museum. The one that stands 14” is $625. I almost want one…almost. But some memories don’t need to be commemorated.