Route of Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail

Route of Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. . , Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery , In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, expanding this country from the Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico north to Canada. President Thomas Jefferson realized that the acquisition of this vast tract of land meant that American settlers would soon cross the Mississippi River and go into the unmapped West known only to the American Indians. The need for knowledge of that West and for a water route that could carry American commerce across the continent were the motivating forces behind Jefferson's request to Congress for funds to finance an exploratory expedition to the Pacific Ocean. , President Jefferson appointed Captain Meriwether Lewis, age 29, to lead the "Corps of Discovery” from Wood River, Illinois (near St. Louis, Missouri) to the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River. Lewis chose his 33-year-old friend William Clark (under whom Lewis had served in the Army) to be his co-leader. The two men headed the expedition across North America and, after an absence of more than two years, returned with documented accounts of their travels and observations. , These accounts, the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, recorded mileage, described mountains, rivers, climates, flora and fauna. The accounts – over a million words in length – also detailed contacts with the peoples of these regions who lived on the plains, in the mountain valleys, and along the river shores. , As an exploration, it was an epic event in American history. Because of it, the West was no longer a place of fantasy and imagination but one of reality, of possibilities that established a vision of an American future.