The Madonna of the Trail statue on the east side of downtown Richmond is one of twelve identical monuments placed along the National Old Trails Road in 1928 by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The statues mark the route of the old National Road (US 40), the first federally funded highway, which runs straight through Richmond on its way from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois.
The bronze-and-algonite statue depicts a pioneer mother — bonneted, carrying an infant, grasping a rifle, with a small child clinging to her skirts — and stands about 10 feet tall on a granite base. It is an unremarkable piece of public sculpture in itself, but the idea behind the chain of twelve statues — a monument to American westward migration at regular intervals across the country — is a genuinely interesting piece of New Deal-era commemoration.