The Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled up the Missouri River past this area on June 8, 1804, after camping the previous day at the mouth of Bonne Femme Creek at what is now Franklin Island Conservation Area. Capt. Meriwether Lewis and two men made a short trip up the Bonne Femme, which Capt. William Clark called "Good Womans River," after the expedition's French boatmen said it was navigable by pirogues for some distance. On this part of the journey, hunter George Drouillard killed a black bear, a female and two cubs, and the meat was cached overnight on the south side of the river. The next morning the party retrieved the bear meat, though Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse wrote that the current was so strong that the hands had great difficulty crossing the river. Clark also noted a number of deer licks on a creek, perhaps present-day Rupe Branch in Boonville. Soon afterward, Clark and Sgt. Charles Floyd left the keelboat and walked along the south side of the river, observing the landscape, and at the mouth of the Lamine River they rejoined the rest of the party and dined above the mouth of that river. The mouth of the Lamine later served as an overnight camp on the return from the Pacific Ocean, when the Corps of Discovery camped there on Sept. 18, 1806, two years and four months after beginning the journey. The next day they reached the Osage River, 72 miles downriver, a distance that had taken about six days in June 1804, and from the Osage they needed only four more days to reach St. Louis and end the expedition. Members of the expedition were deeply impressed by the Missouri River landscape and praised its beautiful prairie, rich soil, pleasant country, timber, bottoms, bluffs, forests, tributary streams and rivers, cedar islands, freshwater and salt springs, caves, and thick growths of cane, rush, nettle, and blackberry. Away from Euro-American settlement, wildlife was plentiful for daily sustenance, and expedition members often judged the land as hunters and farmers. As they neared St. Louis on their return, the first sight of cows caused a shout of joy.