The End of the Trail

Animals, Horses, Architecture, Artists, Color photograph, Fairs/Expositions, Native Peoples, Statuary, Supports

Dimensions

Image Dimensions: 11.0 x 8.0 cm
Support Dimensions: 17.1 x 11.5 cm

Associated Blog Posts:

No Junk in Trunk

The End of the Trail, a sculpture depicting a Native American Indian on horseback by American artist James Earle Fraser, (1876-1953) is shown here in 1915 in the Court of Palms entrance at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California. In the background can be seen The Tower of Jewels. Nearly 19 million people are said to have seen this artwork as one of the most popular attractions at the year-long event. The work was sculpted from plaster using a much smaller bronze sculpture made by Fraser in 1897 as a template. Sadly, The End of the Trail along with other statues on display during the Exposition were dumped into a mud pit in Marina Park at the end of 1915 because they could not be cast in bronze due to the shortage of the metal caused by World War I.

According to background on the sculpture by The National Cowboy Western & Heritage Museum, the original plaster work was reclaimed from the pit in 1919 by residents of Tulare County, California and placed on display in Mooney Grove Park, near Visalia, California. Later in 1968, the same museum purchased the original work for permanent display in Oklahoma City and had the original cast in bronze and returned to the California park, where it can still be seen today.

print notes recto: hand-colored print is presented within a double-ruled, hand-drawn ink frame.

print notes verso: in graphite, faintly: End of (illegible) San Fran…(illegible)

This photograph, with title supplied by this archive, is by an Unknown Brooklyn amateur photographer whose surviving work was discovered in a trunk in the American South. Background can be found at link on Associated Blog Posts with this page.