Toward evening on July 7, 1804, Sergeant Joseph Whitehouse recorded seeing a wolf lying asleep that awoke at the noise of the oars as the Corps of Discovery, a United States Army expedition led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, passed through this area. He also wrote of passing a small island and of the bluffs' yellowish color. Captain Clark recorded that the men killed a wolf that day. The expedition's shooting of game was carefully noted because meat was an important part of the men's diet and a valuable commodity, and Clark wrote that four deer or elk, or one buffalo, were needed to feed the expedition for twenty-four hours. Wolves once lived in present-day Kansas but no longer do.