Wichita ? Wichita had not been founded when American illustrator James E. Taylor is thought to have stopped in the area and sketched some of the first, if not the first, depictions of the area.

Five of Taylor’s drawings of the area that would became Wichita were unveiled Friday at Wichita State University Libraries. The images, drawn nearly 140 years ago, show an American Indian encampment; early trader settlements; the father of Wichita, William Greiffenstein; and a wooded Arkansas River.

Taylor’s drawings, some of which are in the Smithsonian Institution, popularized stereotypes of the Western frontier.

Mike Kelly, the university’s curator of special collections, said the university acquired the drawings from Michael Heaston, a dealer in rare books and former curator of special collections at the university in the 1970s. Heaston bought the drawings in Philadelphia and then sold them to Wichita State for an undisclosed price.

“He thought they were so important to Wichita history,” Kelly said. “He thought someone in town should have them.”

Taylor was born in 1839 in Cincinnati. He graduated from Notre Dame and in 1862, and joined Leslie’s Illustrated newspaper as an artist and war correspondent.

Taylor earned a national reputation for the quality and accuracy of his illustrations.

His professional relationships with military and government officials helped when Taylor was assigned to cover peace treaties and other newsworthy events on the Western frontier. In 1867, for example, he was sent to Kansas to cover negotiations at the Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty.

Kelly said it was most likely during that period that Taylor stopped in what became Wichita and did his sketches.

“He is caught in the junction between artist and photographer,” Kelly said. “It is a moment in time when, although photographs are being done, the majority of illustrations in newspapers are done by artists.”

The images Taylor drew of the American West were published in Harper’s, Leslie’s and other popular 19th-century newspapers.

Taylor went on to cover other events and personalities of the Old West. He died in New York in 1901.