Photograph - Sculptors are John and Ethan Houser. On Saturday, June 2, 2012 the Susan Magoffin Monument was unveiled. The Keystone Heritage Park Board provided a beautiful location for Susan and we feel she would be very happy there.
Numerous individuals, gathered around the monument in commemoration for the famous Juan de Onate.
This bronze sculpture is called "Equestrian" and represents the Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate. It was dedicated on April 21, 2007. It was sculptured by John Sherrill Houser and by his associate sculptor Ethan Taliesin Houser. With 35-foot and 11-tons the statue is the world's largest bronze horseman.
Oñate is celebrated as the founder of the first European settlement west of the Mississippi and celebrator of the first American Thanksgiving in 1598 on the Rio Grande. Today, he is remembered for savageries that some scholars dispute. This is why the unveiling of the monument was met with admirers as well as protestors. Especially members of the Acoma Tribe, which is near Gallup, N.M., opposed it. They said Oñate committed many atrocities on Native Americans.
Beginning construction of The Equestrian monument. The Equestrian, stands more than four stories tall and weighs in at 34,000 pounds. Located at the entrance of the El Paso (Texas) International Airport, it is the world's largest equestrian bronze. The statue depicts Don Juan Oñate, whom Houser calls the founder of the Hispanic Southwest, mounted on a rearing Andalusian stallion at the Pass of the North in 1598.
Individuals taking photographs of the monument . The Equestrian, stands more than four stories tall and weighs in at 34,000 pounds.Located at the entrance of the El Paso (Texas) International Airport, it is the world's largest equestrian bronze. The statue depicts Don Juan Oñate, whom Houser calls the founder of the Hispanic Southwest, mounted on a rearing Andalusian stallion at the Pass of the North in 1598.
http://legacy.lclark.edu/dept/chron/johnhousers08.html
John Hauser was born in Cincinnati on 30 January, 1859, the son of John and Anna Schrenk Hauser, both recent immigrants from Germany. With the exception of his many trips to the West and extensive periods of study in Europe, he would remain a life-long resident of the Queen City. He grew up in Over-The-Rhine and received his early education in the Cincinnati Public school system. He studied drawing at the Ohio Mechanics’ Institute, and in 1873 enrolled in the McMicken Art School, studying under Thomas A. Noble. 1880 marked the first of his European study periods, when he traveled to Munich, where he studied under Nicholas Gysis at the Royal Academy of fine Arts. 1880 is also the date of his first documented painting, a portrait of Lord Baltimore.
http://www.johnhauserproject.com/biography.php
The Equestrian was ten years in the making. In 1992 sculptor John Houser was commissioned by the city of El Paso to create an equestrian monument of Don Juan de Onate, Founder of the Hispanic Southwest and Camino Real in 1598 and who also gave our city its name - El Paso del Norte.
The world's largest bronze equestrian statue was bolted into place on October 25, 2006 at the entrance to El Paso, Texas's international airport. It stands 36 feet tall on an eight-foot base, and is the second-tallest statue in Texas, overshadowed only by a titanic Sam Houston in Huntsville.
The statue, first proposed in the mid-1990s, is of a horse-riding Spanish conquistador named Don Juan de Oñate. It initially drew approval from city officials because Oñate was known for celebrating the first Thanksgiving in The New World, near present-day El Paso, a good twenty years before the Pilgrims did the same in New England.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/news/14011
The world's largest bronze equestrian statue was bolted into place on October 23, 2006 at the entrance to El Paso, Texas's international airport. It stands 36 feet tall on an eight-foot base, and is the second-tallest statue in Texas, overshadowed only by a titanic Sam Houston in Huntsville.
The statue, first proposed in the mid-1990s, is of a horse-riding Spanish conquistador named Don Juan de Oñate. It initially drew approval from city officials because Oñate was known for celebrating the first Thanksgiving in The New World, near present-day El Paso, a good twenty years before the Pilgrims did the same in New England.
Directions: I-10 exit 25, then north on Airway Blvd a little over one mile to El Paso International Airport. The statue stands beside the entry road.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7K1B_The_Equestrian_El_Paso_International_Airport
Susan Shelby Magoffin returned to the Santa Fe Trail on Saturday -- 164 years after she left it. About 60 people gathered at Keystone Heritage Park for the unveiling of a larger-than-life bronze statue of Magoffin, the first Anglo-American woman to make the journey from Missouri to El Paso, and from there to Chihuahua and Santa Fe.
Magoffin kept an extensive diary of her trip, which was made famous when an account of it was published in 1927. The statue shows her perched on a steamer trunk next to her greyhound, Mr. Ring, bent over and writing in her diary.
Sculptor Ethan Houser produced the statue as part of the XII Travelers Memorial of the Southwest -- an effort to commemorate the diversity of the historic Southwest.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_20770928/magoffin-sculpture-unveiled-at-keystone
Susan Shelby Magoffin returned to the Santa Fe Trail on Saturday -- 164 years after she left it. About 60 people gathered at Keystone Heritage Park for the unveiling of a larger-than-life bronze statue of Magoffin, the first Anglo-American woman to make the journey from Missouri to El Paso, and from there to Chihuahua and Santa Fe.
Magoffin kept an extensive diary of her trip, which was made famous when an account of it was published in 1927. The statue shows her perched on a steamer trunk next to her greyhound, Mr. Ring, bent over and writing in her diary.
Sculptor Ethan Houser produced the statue as part of the XII Travelers Memorial of the Southwest -- an effort to commemorate the diversity of the historic Southwest.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_20770928/magoffin-sculpture-unveiled-at-keystone
History of Susan Shelby Magoffin who arrived in El Paso del Norte on February 15, 1847. She recorded her experiences in a diary – Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (1926) – which has been used extensively as a source for that period in history.
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