Lewis and Clark enter Kansas for the first time

This day in History - June 26

In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson completed a piece of foreign diplomacy that became known as the Louisiana Purchase. After he decided that it and the land west of the “great rock mountains” needed to be explored, so he chose a man named Meriwether Lewis who was intelligent, literate with the skills of a frontiersman to lead. Lewis chose William Clark who had the abilities of a draftsman and frontiersman that were stronger than his own to be his co-captain on the journey. Though Lewis greatly respected Clark the US government never recognized him as Lewis’s co-captain. They formed the diverse Military Corps of Discovery. Jefferson hoped that they would be able to find a route to connect the Columbia and Missouri River. This was to provide the new western land access to the port markets on the Gulf of Mexico, the eastern cities along the Ohio River and her tributaries. On August 31, 1803, they began their journey down the Ohio River. In the summer of 1804, they launched from Camp Wood outside of St. Louis. That summer and fall they paddled and pulled themselves upstream on the Missouri River to Fort Mandan—a trading post. There, they wintered, and, in the Spring of 1805, they headed west to present day Three Forks Montana on the Jefferson River. They met with Native Americans who helped them traverse the Bitterroot Mountains. Once over, they used canoes that carried them to the mouth of the Columbia where they wintered one last time. They returned to St. Louis in September of 1806 and reported their findings to Jefferson.

Lewis and Clark would reach Kansas on June 26, 1804, using three boats carrying 43 men, 4 horses, and a dog. They camped for three days at a place called Kaw Point where the Missouri and the Kansas Rivers meet; today we know this place as Kansas City. They built a small fort of logs and brush to protect themselves from the Natives. On June 29 they moved camp to the north bank of the Missouri and the next night they spent on the Kansas side. On July 1, they were opposite the site of Leavenworth where they stayed until the third where they then stayed in what would become Atchison County. They celebrated the first Independence Day west of the Mississippi here by firing a cannon both in the morning and evening, they wore the dress uniforms on both occasions, and they received an extra ration of Whiskey. They named two creeks in the area, one being Independence Creek the other Fourth of July Creek. July 5, 7, and 9 they camped on the Kansas side of the Missouri and though their time in Kansas was short (just 14 days) they gathered an enormous amount of information about eastern Kansas inhabitants.

Both Lewis and Clark liked what they saw in Kansas and noted the abundance of game and the beauty of the prairie. Clark wrote about the great quantities of grapes, raspberries, deer, and turkeys. These notes were taken with the goal of discovering new specimens. They noted several different animals in Kansas including beaver, Bison, Elk, White Tailed Deer, and Black Bears. They also took note of the birds that they encountered like the Greater Prairie Chicken, though today only the smaller Interior race is still seen in Kansas—mainly in Johnson and Pawnee Counties. Other birds included the Whip-poor-will and the now extinct Carolina Parakeet. Of course, they also saw Wild Turkeys and though you can still see an abundance of them today they did lessen in number drastically to the point of near extinction in this area. However, at the turn of the twentieth century, reintroduction efforts in both Kansas and Nebraska were successful and the population has been continually increasing ever since. Clark took note of two plants within the Kansas region on the return trip on September 10-15, 1806. One was the Raccoon Grape, an edible cousin of the grapes we know today. This fruit was found and collected in present day Leavenworth County. The second was the Rigid Goldenrod whose seeds are eaten by grouse and songbird and the flowers are consumed by deer—it was collected in present day Atchison County. The goldenrod was the last sample taken on expedition.

The expedition led by Lewis and Clark led to the expansion of the United States, providing vital information on the region and what it had to offer. They never saw Native Americans but did observe a Kansa campground that was either abandoned or vacated. Their finding would be the basis of the relocation of Native Americans to the west. Over the next 200 years westward migration would drastically change the landscape that Lewis and Clark wrote about from one of virgin forests and grasslands to one of cities, farms, and harvested forests. Many of the fauna they encountered would be displaced and the Natives that survived would be squeezed onto reservations. The importance of Lewis and Clarks journey, not just for Kansas but for all of western United States, cannot be forgotten because without their expedition the U.S. that we know and love would not exist.