Artfully Agoura: Chief White Eagle

If you have ever caught a glimpse of an Indian chief in the distance while exiting the 101 Freeway at Chesebro Road, you are lucky. Tucked away on a privately owned outcropping in the Santa Monica Mountains, known as Mount Estrella, 14-foot tall Chief White Eagle stands with his arm raised to the sky.

The concrete sculpture was created by Polish immigrant Count Jean de Strelecki as a tribute to the Native Americans who first inhabited Agoura. When it was unveiled May 5, 1940, the local Indians in attendance were too polite and honored by his good intentions to point out that De Strelecki had dressed the statue more in the manner of Hollywood's glamorous perception of Native Indians than in the traditional garments of Agoura's indigenous Chumash.

De Strelecki was a society photographer in Hollywood. During his time, cowboy and Indian movies were all the rage. In fact, two famous Hollywood stars, Jay Silverheels or Tonto in the classic "Lone Ranger" TV series and movies and Iron Eyes Cody, who starred as the crying Indian in the 1970s "Don't Pollute" commercial, signed the wet cement at Chief White Eagle's base, reportedly leaving their handprints as well. 

Truly folk art, the chief was shaped over chicken wire wrapped around discarded iron bed springs and old car axles, according to the statement of postmaster Bob Boyd, one of the 20 Agoura men who had volunteered to carry pails of wet cement up the hill in late 1939. 

The location was appropriate, when you consider what an outpost Agoura was back then. The highway itself was installed in 1967. Agoura Road was known as the Ventura Highway, lined with Boyd's Post Office, a tiny grocery and a few other stores at its intersection with Lewis Road. That was the center of town for Agoura's 200 residents.

The city of Agoura Hills officially retains an easement to the statue, but the property's escrow has always carried a condition that the Indian not be removed or torn down.