Washington Irving, author of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was America’s first internationally acclaimed writer. In 1832, he accompanied Captain Jesse Bean and his U.S. Rangers on an adventurous trip through what is now central Oklahoma. He described the journey in A Tour of the Prairies, and his colorful account of Oklahoma before settlement provides a vivid description of the landscape before it was changed by encroaching civilization.

The site of the encampment of October 20, 1832, is at the location of The Washington Irving Trail Museum.