Old Trapper's Lodge

The Old Trapper's Lodge is a folk art collection on Pierce College's campus featuring life-size cement sculptures depicting characters from the American West. The figures are arranged around pathways and grass areas, forming an outdoor gallery you can walk through.

John Ehn created this collection between 1951 and 1981, drawing from his background as a former alligator trapper in Florida for inspiration. He built these life-size figures over several decades as a personal artistic project.

The sculptures show cowboys, Native Americans, and settlers that reflect a specific perspective on American Western history. They are arranged in groups along the pathways and tell stories of how people imagined frontier life.

The collection is located on Pierce College's campus and is free to visit during the college's regular hours without requiring any admission fee. It sits near the Animal Sciences Building and is easy to find once you are on campus.

A fake cemetery called Boot Hill features carved headstones with detailed epitaphs telling stories of made-up characters from the frontier era. This corner is often overlooked even though it contains some of the most creative handcraft details in the entire collection.