Madonna of the Trail Defies Statue-Toppling Culture

If you are driving too fast, you'll miss her. It often happens at the pitch of the rolling Appalachian Mountain, where she has stood for nearly 100 years: the statue of a sturdy frontier woman holding a rifle in one arm and an infant in another, with another child clinging to her long skirt.

She is Madonna of the Trail. Constructed in 1927, the warm color of the algonite stone provides a telling portrayal of temperateness one imagines a woman protecting her treasure, and about to face uncertainty, would possess....