Why 19th-century New York writer Washington Irving's name is on so many things in Oklahoma

Washington Irving slept here, and there, there, and there, in what is now central and eastern Oklahoma.

The famed author of "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," a literary superstar in his day, toured Oklahoma before it was Oklahoma, when it was still Indian Territory, in October-November 1832.

Nearly two centuries later, the legacy of the New Yorker's adventure out west, which he chronicled a few years later in a book, "A Tour on the Prairies," lingers, with Irving's name gracing schools, parks and markers literally from Fort Gibson to Norman and back.

It was the first of a series of excursions headed west from Fort Gibson, the westernmost U.S. military installation at the time, in search of Southern Plains tribes.

'A Tour on the Prairies' was a military expedition

Irving's party accompanied U.S. Indian Commissioner Henry Ellsworth, who was headed west for treaty talks, to St. Louis. The party included British explorer Charles J. Latrobe and young Swiss nobleman Count Albert-Alexandre de Pourtalès. Latrobe also wrote about the excursion in a book called "The Rambler in North America: 1832-1833."

Once in Indian Territory, they were guided by Col. Auguste P. Chouteau, who they met at Chouteau's trading post at Three Forks, the convergence of the Verdrigris, Grand and Arkansas rivers.

The explorers took off to the northwest before turning south on a nearly monthlong adventure, tracing a slouch hat-shaped path from Fort Gibson, according to an article by Stan Hoig in the "Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture."

"There Irving, Latrobe, and Pourtalès joined a party of rangers who were preparing to explore the unknown lands west of Fort Gibson. The march under Capt. Jesse Bean took them up the Arkansas River to the Cimarron, then up that stream past present Guthrie, south through a stretch of scrub oak and brush known widely as the Cross Timbers, and past present Arcadia and Oklahoma City to the area of present Norman before turning back northeastward to Fort Gibson," Hoig wrote.

Irving later recalled: "I shall not easily forget the mortal toil, and the vexations of flesh and spirit, that we underwent occasionally, in our wanderings through the Cross Timber. It was like struggling through forests of cast iron."

Washington Irving reported seeing frontier wildlife and an Osage war party during 1832 Indian Territory excursion

Hoig went on: "During this adventure-filled journey Irving noted exciting encounters with black bears, bison, wild horses, wolf packs, and even elk that then frequented the region, as well as an Osage war party — all fixtures of early Oklahoma. At night, Irving observed, the party 'slept in the open air under trees with outposts stationed to guard us against any surprise by the Indians.'

"After twenty days in the wilds Irving and his friends returned to Fort Gibson, there finding that they were unable to sleep at night without the company of an open sky and sparkling stars to which they had become accustomed."

Irving and Latrobe's writing gave Americans and Europeans some of their first literary glimpses of the flora and fauna — and, to the adventurers, the sheer excitement — of Indian Territory and the American Western frontier.

Markers and monuments to Washington Irving's tour of Indian Territory

That's why Irving's name is etched on markers, lent to parks and schools, and the author-explorer inspired the by-appointment-only Washington Irving Trail Museum in Ripley.

In Arcadia, markers commemorate a hunt for wild horses that Irving described as "Ringing the Wild Horse."

The markers, on Route 66 a half-mile east of Arcadia at Anderson Road, went up in 1949 courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society and the State Highway Commission, and earlier, on the centennial of the expedition in 1932, thanks to Arcadia Public School and the Oklahoma City Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In the Little Axe area east of Norman is another marker, in a small triangle-shape park at 15821 Little Axe Drive, just north of State Highway 9 and Thunderbird Casino, also set in place in 1932, sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Cleveland County Teachers Association.

Norman also has Washington Irving Middle School and Irving Recreation Center.

Edmond has Washington Irving Elementary School, and Durant has Washington Irving Elementary School.

Tulsa has a marker commemorating the excursion dating to 1915, at the intersection of W Easton Street and Vancouver Avenue near Own Park.

Washington Irving Park is in Bixby.

Back at Fort Gibson is an old marker placed where Irving's tent was staked either before the party started out or upon its return, installed in 1910 by J.S. Holden, editor of the Fort Gibson Post.

There are surely more. There is an online Washington Irving Historical Marker Database.

Senior Business Writer Richard Mize has covered housing, construction, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com since 1999. Contact him at rmize@oklahoman.com. Sign up here for his weekly newsletter, Real Estate with Richard Mize.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Washington Irving 'Tour on the Prairies' in Indian Territory, Oklahoma