"The region west of the Mississippi continued in the popular mind to be a strange land for which the reports of explorers and travellers did the work of fiction, and Cooper's Prairie had few followers"

This quote by Carl Clinton Van Doren talks to the perception of the region west of the Mississippi River in the popular creativity. At the time, the location was mainly undiscovered and unknown, and the reports of explorers and visitors served to fill out the gaps in knowledge and create a sense of secret and intrigue. This was further perpetuated by the works of authors such as James Fenimore Cooper, whose stories of the "Prairie" even more glamorized the area. In spite of this, the area was still mainly unknown and unexplored, and the stories of Cooper and other authors had couple of fans in comparison to the more familiar areas east of the Mississippi.