A metal bison sculpture built by Native youth in Denver was stolen overnight along with the trailer hauling it, disappearing from a hotel parking lot in Pueblo before it could reach its final stop at a local museum program. The theft happened at the Springhills Suite at the Marriott parking lot, and the young artists woke up to find both the trailer and their artwork gone.
According to koaa.com, the sculpture had traveled through Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs before arriving in Pueblo for a program at the El Pueblo History Museum. Police have identified a possible suspect vehicle: a white short-bed Ford pickup from somewhere between 2018 and 2022, with a ladder visible in the truck bed. The stolen trailer itself carries Colorado license plate EUX-T06, a detail investigators are hoping will help someone spot it on the road or parked somewhere unexpected.
Anyone who has seen the trailer or the sculpture is asked to call the Pueblo Police Department's non-emergency number at 719-553-2502, as reported by Denver7.
A Youth-Led Tribute to Bison Survival
The sculpture is a youth-led art installation created as part of the Bison Resilience Project, an educational initiative tied to the Bison Harvest at the TallBull Memorial Grounds, per the same koaa.com account. The project was made possible by Casa Milagro Youth Solutions, which describes itself as presenting youth with artistic educational intervention workshops. The Denver-based nonprofit works to help children and teens heal from abuse and trauma, a mission reflected in the sculpture's design.
The artwork carries deep cultural significance, representing the genocide of the bison and its devastating impact on Native communities, the station's report states. Its design unfolds in three sections: the rear portrays a full, strong bison symbolizing the thriving era of pre-colonization, the center features a skeletal design representing hardship, trauma, and historical struggle, and the front represents survival, recovery, and moving forward with resilience.
A Species' Near-Collapse and Slow Comeback
The koaa.com report frames that symbolism against the species' own history, describing bison numbers falling from a historic population of 16 million to fewer than 1,000 before recovering to over 500,000 today. Other accounts of the species' decline differ on the starting number. The National Bison Association estimates the North American herd stood at 30 million to 60 million before 1900, also noting it fell to fewer than 1,000 before preservation and restoration efforts began. The organization further reports that a 2022 USDA census counted 192,477 bison residing on private ranches and farms across the United States.
For now, the sculpture brought to Pueblo for a community education program is itself missing, its whereabouts as uncertain as the historical tallies that inspired it. Police are continuing to ask residents to keep an eye out for the white pickup and the trailer bearing plate EUX-T06, and to call in anything they see.
