Standing Bear: Taller Than Pioneer Woman

Ponca City, Oklahoma

Standing Bear, a Ponca chief, suffered under the encroach of white settlers, so he went to court and became the first Native American to successfully argue that his people were "persons" under U.S. law. Knowing that, Native Americans were angered when Ponca City erected a 17-foot-tall Pioneer Woman statue in 1930. The purpose of the statue was to keep America's pioneer women from being forgotten -- but what about America's Native Americans? They vowed to put up a statue of their own, even bigger, in Ponca City.

Standing Bear was chosen as the subject, and although the bronze chief's statue took until 1996 to complete, he is five feet taller than the pioneer woman. He faces toward the rising sun to symbolize hope.

In 2007 a Standing Bear Museum was added -- to match the Pioneer Woman Museum that opened in 1958.