When President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory from France in 1803, there was no Google Earth technology to peer down and take pictures of the land from space. There was no Mapquest or WAZE app to tell people how to get there. There was no TripAdvisor or Yelp app to tell anyone what to expect once they got there, either. They had to go find out for themselves. The travelled by foot and by boat, because there were no airplanes, trains or cars to take them. The president needed someone to travel to this newly purchased land and check it out and then report back with their findings.
In the end it was the president’s personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and William Clark who rose to the occasion. Maybe you’ve heard of them. They led the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which took them from St. Louis to Oregon, a total of about 8,000 miles, in just two-and-a-half years.
They left St. Louis in May of 1804. That year the expedition celebrated the first Independence Day west of the Mississippi. River. In August of 1804 the group met several Native American tribes. By October, the party had made it to what is now North Dakota. In November, Lewis and Clark hire a French/Canadian fur trader named Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife, a Shoshone named Sacagawea, as interpreters. On Christmas Eve 1804, the expedition settled in for the winter at Fort Mandan, in what is now North Dakota. By April of 1805, the group was on the move again and killed its first grizzly bear near Yellowstone River in Montana. By September, they made it to the Rocky Mountains. The expedition reached the Pacific Ocean in November of 1805 and wintered there. On March 23, 1806 they started the journey back east. They returned to St. Charles, Missouri, on Sept. 23, 1806.
This trip was more than a great adventure for the men and their crew — it helped shape the country as we know it today. Some of the things that Lewis and Clark accomplished on their expedition include:
• Establishing control of the Pacific Northwest.
• Inspiring explorers, trappers, traders, hunters, adventurers, prospectors, homesteaders, ranchers, soldiers, businessman and missionaries to move west.
• Determining the course of the Upper Missouri River.
• Proving that it was possible to travel to the west coast by land.
• Surveying the life and culture of the Native American tribes they met in Missouri, the Rocky Mountains and the northwest coast.
• Discovering, meticulously documenting and describing at least 120 mammals, birds, reptiles and fish, as well as almost 200 plant specimens.
