Edgar Samuel Paxson was an artist who painted scenes of the early days of Montana and portraits of Native American leaders and warriors.

Edgar Samuel Paxson was born on April 25, 1852, near Buffalo, New York, and first worked painting carriages and signs in his father?s shop before following his dream of going West. He moved to Montana Territory in 1877, just a year after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and worked at frontier jobs such as stagecoach guard, hunter, and sign painter while sketching the people and places he saw. Paxson later opened studios in Deer Lodge, Butte, and then Missoula, where he became best known for his large painting Custer?s Last Stand and for many careful portraits of Native Americans and scenes from Montana history. In 1911?1912 he was asked to paint big history murals for the Montana State Capitol in Helena and for the Missoula County Courthouse, and he kept working as an artist until he died in Missoula on November 9, 1919.