On August 12, 1805, Hugh McNeal stood over Trail Creek, about two and a half miles downstream from here, and Meriwether Lewis wrote that McNeal exultingly stood with a foot on each side of the little rivulet and thanked his God that he had lived to bestride the mighty and heretofore deemed endless Missouri. Trail Creek was one of hundreds of small tributaries that flow into the Missouri River. After many months of laboring to pole, paddle, and drag the heavy boats of the Lewis and Clark Expedition upstream against the Missouri's strong currents, McNeal was finally able to straddle that great river near here.