In July 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark with their Corps of Discovery pushed and sailed up the Missouri River beyond abandoned Kaw (Kansa) Indian villages in uncomfortably hot summer weather. The “Kansas City west bottoms” of the river guided them north toward more prairies and plains and marshy flats. Key trading posts for trappers and fur companies later staked out land here in what is today Atchison, Kansas and St. Joseph, Missouri.
The expeditioners had yet to meet up with Native Americans; most having moved west for the summer buffalo hunt. However, the men were becoming increasingly wary, as their keelboat and piroques approached the Nebraska Territory and northern habitat of reported hostile Sioux Indian marauders. Retracing some of the expedition’s route later in the 19th century, painters like Karl Bodmer and George Catlin; photographers; and authors sketched and scribbled a more or less comprehensive record of the native cultures and landscapes that Lewis and Clark first reported to President Tom Jefferson back in Washington.
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