View of the Junction of the Red River and the False Washita, in Texas

George Catlin, born Wilkes-Barre, PA 1796-died Jersey City, NJ 1872 · 1834-1835

“We are, at this place, on the banks of the Red River, having Texas under our eye on the opposite bank. Our encampment is on the point of land between the Red and False Washita rivers, at their junction; and the country about us is a panorama . . . of prairie and timber, alternating in the most delightful shapes and proportions that the eye of a connoisseur could desire. The verdure is everywhere of the deepest green.” George Catlin sketched this landscape in 1834, when he accompanied a regiment of the U.S. Dragoons to Indian Territory. (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 39, 1841; reprint 1973)