Jim Bridger Statue: Frontier Trails Museum
Independence, Missouri
Sculpted by Tom Beard in 2004, the Jim Bridger statue immortalizes one of the Old West's most famous scouts. Bridger was illiterate, but he told good stories. Some doubted his claims that he discovered Yellowstone and the Great Salt Lake, but there's no question that he did find the pass through the Rockies now used by Interstate 80. He was also infamous, in his younger days, for abandoning fellow mountain man Hugh Glass after Glass had been mauled by a bear. Glass vowed revenge, but for some reason let Bridger live.
The statue stands in front of the National Frontier Trails Museum, which recalls the several key western trails whose departure points were in Independence.
One in ten travelers who set out from Independence died on the trails, and the museum's "Trail Trash" exhibit displays some of the priceless family heirlooms dumped along the way by pioneers desperate to survive.