Sketchbook: Overland Trip to Washington Territory

In 1885 Richards made a two-month rail trip to the Tacoma Territory (present-day Washington State). Tacoma City was the terminal point for the Northern Pacific Railroad, whose directors may have sponsored the artist’s tour in the hope that his paintings would stimulate interest in the region. Richards also made studies en route back east, as this view of the Missouri River demonstrates. The panoramic image of the broad river plain stretching away to the horizon and the expanse of blank paper dramatize his wry observation in a letter home: “The great west is certainly very great, but there are not at present many people in it.”