Pioneer Woman Museum

In Ponca City, this museum stands beside a monumental bronze statue of a striding frontier woman leading a child by the hand, erected in 1930 to honor the women who settled the American West. The seventeen-foot statue, chosen from a national design competition, became an emblem of pioneer endurance. The adjacent museum expands the theme with exhibits on women of all backgrounds who shaped Oklahoma and the plains, from Native and immigrant women to ranchers and reformers. It reframes settlement history around the often-overlooked labor of women.