Where it All Began – The Lewis and Clark Expedition
By Tammy Scarbrough
1 American land west of the Mississippi River had virtually been unexplored until Lewis and Clark came along in 1804. President Thomas Jefferson specifically chose Meriwether Lewis for the exploration and he, in turn, chose his friend William Clark to help him with this special assignment. When the trip began, the two leaders had 14 soldiers with them, along with nine frontiersmen, Clark's servant, York, and a couple of boatmen. This group became known as "The Corps of Discovery."
2 The plan was to start the expedition at the Missouri River and so they did on May 14, 1804. A couple of months later, they met some Indians in what is now Council Bluffs, Iowa. After meeting the Mandan Indians, Lewis and Clark's team built Fort Mandan close to present-day Stanton, North Dakota. It was here that they met Sacagawea, the sister of a Shoshone chief. Her husband, Charbonneau, was hired as an interpreter, so she went along with the expedition team, even though she had just given birth to a baby boy. Sacagawea was invaluable to the expedition because she would be their main Indian interpreter.
3 At this time, Lewis and Clark's team needed to build canoes to get across the many rivers they would need to navigate. On July 25, 1805, they reached a fork where three rivers joined at the Missouri. They named the rivers the Galatin, Madison, and Jefferson. They followed the fork they had named the Jefferson. They could clearly see the Rocky Mountains, but they knew that it would not be easy to cross them.
