Jim Turner, Historian 

“They were just as brave, or braver, than their men because, in many cases, they went with sad hearts and trembling bodies. They went, however, and endured every hardship that befalls a pioneer.”

 Harry S. Truman

July 4^th, 1928, Springfield, Ohio

      The Springerville “Madonna of the Trail” looms eighteen feet high across from the Post Office on Main Street, also known as Highway 60. She has eleven identical sisters, each in a different state: Bethesda, Maryland; Beallsville, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Ohio; Wheeling, West Virginia; Vandalia, Illinois; Richmond, Indiana; Lexington, Missouri; Council Grove, Kansas; Lamar, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Upland, California.  

     The statues were a project of the National Old Trails Road Association, established by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in 1911 with Judge Harry S. Truman as president.

     When asked to sketch a pioneer woman, German born sculptor August Leimbach said, “When I was a school boy in the old country, the pioneer days in America made a deep impression on me.”  He thought of the brave, strong settlers he met when he immigrated to the St. Louis area in 1910 and created a sturdy big-boned woman, a reluctant pioneer tough enough to survive on the frontier.

     Leimbach’s vision was a pioneer mother whose husband had not come home when he promised. Believing he was in danger, she put her little child in a blanket, grabbed the rifle and her boy, and ran out to look for father.

     The five-ton figure stands 10 feet tall on top of a eight-foot base and foundation, all made of poured algonite aggregate. Granite, the main ingredient, gives the statue its warm pink glow.

     Dozens of towns wanted a Madonna statue in their town, and the competition got tough. Congressman Truman wrote to his wife, Bess:  

     “Arizona put up its claim and I want to tell you it was some job to decide. L. S. Williams from Williams, Arizona, made the best plea I ever listened to, but Williams was like Independence — they never had done anything for the National Old Trails organization. Springerville, which happens to be the residence of J. W. Becker, national vice president, has never missed an opportunity to boost the road and pay his dues to the organization . . . Kingman had a little old maid there who was a member of the committee and who was supposed to have an unprejudiced mind but who put forward an argument for Kingman every time a point was made for another town. The man from Williams named her incompetent. She was. She lost her town every opportunity to win.”

     Harry S. Truman attended the dedication ceremony in Springerville on September 29^th, 1928. Local residents are still very proud of the statue, especially members of the DAR. They are still aware of how J.W. Becker made sure Springerville was one of twelve American towns to be the home of a Madonna of the Trail.