James Earle Fraser’s End of the Trail is one of the most iconic works featured in The American West in Bronze, 1850–1925.
First modeled in 1894, the sculpture is based on Fraser’s experiences growing up in Dakota Territory; as he wrote in his memoirs, “as a boy, I remembered an old Dakota trapper saying, ‘The Indians will someday be pushed into the Pacific Ocean.'”
The artist later said that, “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.” In 1915, Fraser displayed a monumental plaster version of the work at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, earning popular acclaim and a gold medal.