Missouri Valley Environs

Missouri Valley Environs. Fort Clark State Historic Site. Fort Clark and its opposition post Primeau's Post, as well as that of the nearby Mandan and later Arikara village, were for defense and also served to tap the bountiful natural resources of this stretch of the Missouri River valley. Between 1832 and 1862, a host of visitors to Fort Clark had commented on it. , The artist George Catlin during a visit in the summer of 1832 had penned the following in one of his letters.: , The ground on which the Mandan village is at present built, was admirably selected for defense; being on a bank forty or fifty feet above the bed of the river. , A year later, upon their party's arrival, Prince Maximilian wrote on June 18. 1833: , Immediately behind the fort there were, in the prairies, seventy leather tents of the Crows, which we immediately visited.... The view of the prairie around Fort Clark was at this time highly interesting., The journal of naturalist John James Audubon mentions his visit to Fort Clark on June 7, 1843: , The site of this fort apears a good one, though it is placed considerably below the Mandan Village. We saw some small spots cultivated, where corn, pumpkins, and beans are grown. The fort and village are situated on a high bank, rising somewhat to the elevation of a hill. , Almost two decades later, the pioneer ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan put ashore at Fort Clark on June 4, 1862, following its abandonment, and recounted in his journal: , The ruins of the village are quite interesting. Here for the first time I have seen the dirt houses of the Upper Missouri, and they far surpass my expectations.