On June 25, 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed this part of Missouri after a heavy morning fog delayed departure from a campsite near present-day Atherton. With the river high but beginning to fall, the party passed hills on the south side banded with seams of coal, then moved beyond “Chabonea” Creek, now known as Lazy Branch, into stretches of hard water with large floating logs and caving banks. After passing “Labeenie” or “Bennet’s Creek,” probably today’s Mill Creek, William Clark observed prairies lying close to the river on both sides, with plums, raspberries, wild crab apples, wildflowers, and great numbers of deer feeding along the banks. For several days the Corps of Discovery had been traveling through an especially fertile landscape rich in plants and animals as it moved beyond expanding settlements. That afternoon the flotilla met more hard water around the heads of small islands and rounded a sharp bend later known as Liberty Bend, where John Ordway noted handsome high prairies on the south side and a range of highlands beyond them near the river. That evening the expedition camped on an island near present-day Sugar Creek. In this region the journal keepers recorded a lush environment with abundant crab apples, raspberries, large herds of deer, and many bears, while the expedition also contended with collapsing alluvial banks and the swift, treacherous currents of the Missouri River. The abundance of wildlife was reflected in the hunters’ success: during June they killed 77 deer, 14 bears, one wolf, two turkeys, several geese, and a few rabbits, including 18 deer in the four days from June 23 to June 26 as the expedition passed through the fertile woodland and prairie country of present-day Jackson and Clay counties.