Lewis and Clark Expedition, Missouri Bottoms, Boone’s Lick Country to the Kansas River

We have followed President Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery, led by Captains Lewis and Clark, to St. Louis (St. Charles) and some distance beyond across part of the present state of Missouri.  Now our journey with them continues along the lower Missouri River past Arrow Rock, a future station serving many settler parties departing westward on the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. Overcoming many hazards including hordes of mosquitoes, rattlesnakes and floating logs, the keelboat and pirogues negotiate the new wilderness west toward the Great Plains and today’s Kansas City and the Kansas River.  William Clark, Dan Boone’s son, and others a few years after the Louisiana Purchase helped establish Fort Osage on a bluff that overlooks the Missouri Valley.