On a fine warm day, great numbers from both sides flocked to the bank to view Lewis and Clark as they passed the first Mandan village they visited. On the morning of October 27, 1804, they stopped briefly there and smoked with Chief Big White. They met a French man, Rene Jusseaume, who had a wife and children in the village, had lived with the Mandans for about fifteen years as a free trader, acted as an interpreter, and accompanied Lewis and Clark to another village. The original site was destroyed by gravel pit operations in the 1950s.