Welcome to Pioneer High!
The highly recognizable Pioneer Seal orginated is a sculptural bronze relief created in 1924 by Avard Fairbanks while he served on the University of Oregon faculty. Fairbanks, while on the U-M faculty, gave permission to Ann Arbor High School to customize the art. His son was a student at AAHS.
It was inspired by Avard's friendship with Oregon Trail Pioneer Ezra Meeker whose passion for recognition and preservation of the Trail was legendary. It depicts a pioneer mother and babe-in-arms in a covered wagon with her husband driving the oxen on a rocky trail. Original placements of this sculpture are in Baker City and Seaside, Oregon. Additional locations of the monument include Vancouver, Washington and Casper, Wyoming at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center. The Fairbanks design was also selected for the Oregon Territory Centennial U.S. Postage Commemorative Stamp in 1948. The new bronze casting placed in Boise, Idaho is taken from the sculptor’s original model. About the Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was the “backbone” of transportation in the early American West. Along it traveled the greatest land migration in human history. From 1841 into the 1880’s, nearly one half million pioneers trekked it to settle America’s western frontiers. Some 20,000 perished along the way. It stretched from points along the Missouri River into the Northwest Territories, and it encompassed parts of the California Trails (“Donnor Party,” “49’rs,”etc.), the Utah (“Mormon”) Pioneer Trail, the Pony Express Trail, and the Overland Stages Trail.
