B. R. (Benjamin Ryder) Corwin

Born in 1833, Benjamin Ryder Corwin wrote under the name B. R. Corwin. He is chiefly remembered for A Trip to the Rockies (1890), a short travel narrative that follows a party of New York and Brooklyn bankers and businessmen on their way to the American Bankers' Association convention in Kansas City and onward into the Rocky Mountain region.

Corwin's writing has an easy, observational style that mixes scenic description with the social energy of Gilded Age travel. The book offers readers a compact window into how prosperous eastern travelers experienced the American West at the end of the nineteenth century.

Records from the period also identify Corwin as a Civil War officer, later known as Major Benjamin Ryder Corwin. He died in 1909, leaving behind a small but interesting place in American travel writing.