Lewis and Clark Expedition Across Missouri

On June 26, 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived at the mouth of the Kansas River after a day of difficult labor towing the keelboat and two pirogues through the Missouri River’s strong current, cutting timber from the bank to make way for the towrope and breaking two towropes while trying to get the keelboat around a bad sandbar near the site of present-day Case Park. William Clark recorded that the boat was finally worked through with great exertion and strong rowing, and near this place he saw an immense flock of Carolina parakeets, the first documented sighting of these now extinct birds west of the Mississippi. At sunset the party camped just above the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, where it remained for the next two days, then passed the mouth of the Kansas again on September 15, 1806, during the return journey and landed at the foot of the hill where Case Park now stands. There Clark and Meriwether Lewis climbed the hill, surveyed the countryside, and the men gathered pawpaws before continuing on to camp above Hay Cabin Creek. Clark judged the hill to have a commanding situation for a fort, reflecting one of the expedition’s missions to identify possible fort sites to establish an American presence on the river, though no fort was built there; the first post-expedition fort chosen on the lower Missouri was Fort Osage, whose construction Clark supervised in 1808.

Kansas City, Missouri · United States