Before the Court of Flowers, "high on a pedestal," stood Solon Borglum's Pioneer: "the old bearded figure with axe and rifle, on his lean horse," sharing "that virile spirit of realism that ran through all the Exposition statuary" (Todd). It was placed as the deliberate counterpart to Fraser's End of the Trail before the matching Court of Palms, the settler's arrival opposite the Native rider's exhaustion.
Barry's companions argued over it. The figure seemed too old to be a typical forty-niner, but they decided it justified itself by suggesting a pioneer who had grown old with the community, and saw in it the poet Joaquin Miller. "It's Miller sure enough," said the architect, "even if the likeness isn't close. But why those military trappings on the horse?"
