Oklahoma is home to one of the United States’ best-known pioneer monuments. In 1927 oilman E.W. Marland sponsored a competition to select the best portrayal of pioneer womanhood for his adopted hometown of Ponca City. Twelve 3-foot bronze sculptures toured major cities across the country; art critics and average Americans evaluated their designs. Marland selected the public favorite, Bryant Baker’s Confident, to become Ponca City’s Pioneer Woman monument. Like the 12 identical Madonna of the Trail statues erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution and less-known Pioneer Mother monuments that followed, Ponca City’s Pioneer Woman depicts a young mother in a sunbonnet striding bravely westward.
Most later Oklahoma pioneer monuments portray scenes specific to Oklahoma’s history as a former Indian Territory. Two–in Guthrie and Broken Arrow–depict the state of Oklahoma as a marriage between white cowboys and Native American women. And eight monuments depict late-19th-century land runs when settlers rushed to claim lands taken from Native tribes that had themselves been relocated onto other Indigenous groups’ homelands decades earlier.
![Bronze statue of a woman in a sunbonnet striding confidently. She carries a Bible and satchel in her proper right arm. On her left strides a young boy.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Ponca-City-PM-1-768x1024.jpg)
![Bronze statue of a man in a wide-brimmed hat](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Pioneer-Man-cropped-752x1024.jpg)
![Bronze statue of a man holding a farm tools, a woman, and a young girl holding a rag doll. A bucket sits at their feet.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Enid-Homesteaders-1-1024x683.jpg)
![Bronze statue of a man holding a cowboy hat behind his back. With his other hand he holds the hand of a Native American woman wearing a simple short-sleeved gown and her hair in braids.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Guthrie-Statehood-1-783x1024.jpg)
![](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/pioneers-1889-crop-resized-1024x790.jpg)
![Bronze statue depicting a man riding a galloping horse.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Enid-Boomer-1-1024x987.jpg)
![Bronze statue of a man and woman sitting on a wagon box. The man's arms are in front of him as if holding reins.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Perry-side-cropped-938x1024.jpg)
![Bronze statue of a man and woman standing in front of a land claim stake.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/land-of-hope-detail-cropped-665x1024.jpg)
![Bronze statue of a man on a rearing horse](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/land-is-mine-833x1024.jpg)
![Bronze statue of a man squatting over a campfire. His horse grazes behind him.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Enid-Holding-the-Claim-1-1024x683.jpg)
![Bronze statues of people riding horses and driving wagons.](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brand-New-State-front-resized-1024x768.jpg)
![](https://pioneermonuments.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Oklahoma-Centennial-1024x768.jpg)
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