Madonna

In the early 1900’s, the Daughters of the American Revolution suggested marking the national Old Trails Road with a series of small markers placed at frequent intervals along the route. This road had begun with Braddock’s Road, British General, surveyed by his aide Lt. George Washington, and cut through the Allegheny Mountains by British soldiers in 1755, at the beginning the French and Indian War. Seen as a political necessity for the solidarity of the American people, the road was later continued as the Columbia Pike, the Great Valley Road, the Wilderness Road cut by Daniel Boone across the Cumberland Gap, the Cumberland Road (also known as the National Road) and later the Boones’ Lick Road and the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails west of the Mississippi River.

In 1924, Missouri State Regent, Mrs. John Trigg Moss of St. Louis, envisioned the idea of a statue in each of the twelve states crossed by the Santa Fe Trail instead of small markers. It was said that she was inspired by an Oregon statue of Sacajawea, the Shoshone woman who guided the Lewis & Clark Expedition on its search for a water route to the Pacific Ocean.

Although many cities and towns competed to have the Missouri Madonna placed in their locale, Judge Harry S. Truman, President of the National Old Trails Road Association was very supportive in the Lafayette-Lexington Chapter’s efforts to have the Madonna placed in Lexington. A pamphlet entitled "Twenty Three Reasons for Placing Missouri’s D.A.R. Monument-The Pioneer Mother-at Lexington," was compiled and published by the Chapter under the direction of its Regent Mary B. Chinn Chiles.

At the 1927 Continental Congress in Washington, D.C., Mrs. Chiles laid her claim before Mrs. Moss, who had been appointed the DAR National Chairman of the National Old Trails Committee in September of that year. Mrs. Moss and her committee considered sites at Independence and Lexington choosing Lexington as the most historic, beautiful, and appropriate site for the Missouri monument. Mrs. Chiles later became Missouri State Regent (1936-38).

The twelve statues, designed by St. Louis sculptor August Leimbach, and made of Algonite stone, are a poured mass, the main aggregate being pink Missouri granite. They stand ten-feet tall on a six-foot base with a five-foot foundation (two-feet showing) below.

Marking the 67th Anniversary of the Civil War Battle of Lexington and facing ever Westward, the Missouri Madonna of the Trail, was dedicated on September 17, 1928.

In 1978 and 1988, rededications were held. Missouri Regent, Mrs. Michael Zuk, and Mrs. Herbert White, Registrar General, assisted the Lafayette-Lexington Regent, Mrs. William Moore, in the 1978 ceremony. The 1988 service was conducted by Mrs. Clark Froman and Mrs. Larry Bradley.

In April of 1998, the Honorable Ike Skelton, Congressional Representative from Missouri and a Lexington resident asked the Lafayette-Lexington Chapter to provide a photograph of the Madonna for the new aircraft carrier, "The U.S.S. Harry S. Truman." The Carrier was commissioned on July 27, 1998, at Norfolk, Virginia; a 20x24 inch color photograph of Missouri’s Madonna of the Trail hangs in a place of honor in its Captain’s quarters.