The End of the Trail is a sculpture by James Earle Fraser. Fraser created the original version of the work in 1894, and he subsequently produced numerous replicas in both plaster and bronze. The sculpture depicts a weary Native American man, wearing only the remains of a blanket and carrying a spear. He is hanging limp as his weary horse with swollen eyes comes to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The wind blowing the horse's tail suggests they have their backs to the wind. The man in the statue is based on Seneca Chief John Big Tree, and the horse was adapted from one in another work, In the Wind. 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.
Fraser felt a connection to Native American culture, which influenced the creation of the End of the Trail. The sculpture gained national popularity after being presented at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. The 1915 version of the statue is now in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Museum. The work has been criticized for the manner in which is depicts Native Americans as a dying race. However, Fraser intended for the work to be a critique of the United States government.
Background
Fraser took inspiration for End of the Trail from his experiences 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."
Fraser made several other works related to Native Americans. His design for the Buffalo-Indian Head nickel appeared on the five cent coin from 1913 to 1938. Asked to create something uniquely American, Fraser thought the buffalo and American Indian were integral parts of American culture and history. Another work by Fraser devoted to Native Americans is called The Buffalo Prayer.
Design and construction
Fraser created the first model of End of the Trail in 1894 at the age of 17. The design was inspired by a piece of art Fraser saw at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The original model was exhibited at a competition sponsored by the American Art Association, winning first place. Over the years, Fraser created several renditions of the model, trying to perfect it. With the assistance of his wife, Laura Gardin Fraser, he created a two-and-a-half-times life-size model of the statue in plaster. This large plaster version of the work was displayed on an eight-foot pedestal at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco and was awarded the gold medal, garnering national attention.
Location
After the Panama–Pacific Exposition closed, plans to place a bronze version of the statue on the Pacific Palisades were halted due to scarce resources during World War I. The plaster monument was thrown in a mud pit in Marina Park, along with other works from the Exposition. The Tulare County Forestry Board purchased and rescued the statue in 1919, transporting it to Mooney Grove Park in Visalia, California, where it was placed near other notable sculptures such as Pioneer by Solon Borglum. Fraser was unaware of the statue's location until 1922.
After Fraser's death in 1953, plans were in motion to create a Fraser Memorial Studio in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The museum considered it imperative to feature Fraser's most renowned work, End of the Trail. Associates of the museum made an agreement with Tulare Country that the 1915 plaster version could be transferred to the museum, which would supply a replica to Mooney Grove Park. Some residents of Visalia and art professionals felt that statue should remain where it had been for the past 50 years. The exchange was made, in part, because the statue was in poor condition with large surface cracks, and Tulare Country was unable to accumulate the funds to preserve it.