"...we determin to delay at this Place three or four Days to make observations & recruit the party..."
Captain William Clark
June 27, 1804
On June 26, 1804, the U.S. Army expedition led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark stopped at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. The men had a very busy three days repairing their damaged pirogue, drying their supplies, and observing the animals. The officers dealt with a discipline problem; one man received fifty lashes and another received one hundred lashes for becoming drunk on guard duty. This was the first discipline problem, since leaving St. Charles, Missouri, that led to a court martial.
The men built a small fort of logs and brush called a redoubt on a piece of land between the Kaw and Missouri Rivers (today known as Kaw Point) to serve as defense against any potential Indian attack.
A Series of Firsts
As Lewis and Clark passed through here, they had a series of "firsts."
The expedition saw buffalo for the first time. Captain Lewis also observed and described the Carolina Parkakeet [sic] for the first and only time during the journey.
[Background illustration] "Far removed from the Sivilised world..." Image courtesy of the Missouri Department of Conservation.
This illustration depicts Kaw Point on the Missouri River at the time of Lewis and Clark. It is one section of a fifty-foot-long mural on public display at the Missouri Department of Conservation's Discovery Center, located at 4750 Troost in downtown Kansas City, MO.
Comments 0 comments