The statue was created in 1925 by Henry Lion and has long been a landmark of the Carthay Circle, Los Angeles neighborhood in California, United States, except for a brief period in 2008 when it was stolen.

It was recovered at a scrap metal yard by the LAPD art-theft division and was reinstalled in January 2009.

[1] Created as an homage to the father of the founder of the Carthay Circle district, the statue is sometimes called Dan the Miner after its subject, Daniel O'Connell McCarthy.

[2] Originally part of a fountain opposite Carthay Circle Theatre, it was moved to the pocket park at McCarthy Vista and San Vicente Boulevard in 1969.

[2] The Pioneer was one of three California-historic-nostalgia monuments in the original layout of Carthay Circle, along with a boulder honoring Jedediah Smith and a sundial made of bricks of Mission San Juan Capistrano.