We learned from our reading about the Lewis & Clark expedition that Kaw Point in Kansas City was a place we shouldn’t miss. It wasn’t a museum to walk through, but it was an actual place where the expedition stopped for a few days. But first I want to tell you what this point is and why it’s so important. “The Missouri River meets the Kansas (Kaw) River between today’s Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. It’s believed the confluence in 1804 was only about 0.25 miles north of where it is today.” (AI)
“The Expedition camped at a wooded point where the Kansas enters the Missouri from June 26-28, 1804. The men hunted, repaired the pirogues, dressed deer skins, took calculations and built a six-foot-high fortification of logs and brush, called ‘bowers.’ Here’s Patrick Gass’s entry for June 26: ‘It was agreed to remain here during the 27th and 28th where we pitched our tents and built bowers in front of them. Canzan or Kanzas, is 230 yards and a quarter wide, and navigable to a great distance.'” (this history is from the National Park Service) The Lewis & Clark Expedition arrived at Kaw Point on June 26, 1804.
William Clark wrote in his journal, “Passed a bad sandbar, where our tow rope broke twice, & with great exertions we rowed around it and came to and camped in the point above the Kansas River.” Sounds like the men were exhausted from fighting the currents and the stags in the river that they needed a break.
- 1 – repair the red pirogue
- 2 – cook
- 3 – re-supply the keelboat
- 4 – dry the goods
- 5 – build a redoubt (a small, often temporary defensive fortification)
- 6 – set tents
- 7 – hunt
- 8 – Lewis, Clark, York, and Seaman (Lewis’s dog) watch from on top of the hill where we were standing
description of the Missouri River
The Missouri River of Lewis and Clark’s era was wild and unpredictable. It earned the nickname “Big Muddy” because of the abundance of sand, sediment, silt, and clay. In a constant state of change, the river cut side channels, chutes, eddies, boils, sandbars, backwaters, and oxbows—strong currents in some places, slow in others. The flowing water cut into riverbanks, undercutting shorelines and felling trees into the constantly moving water.
Over time, the rive meandered back and forth across the flood plain, touching the base of each bluff in tight serpentine curves. Sometimes these tight “u” shaped curves would “pinch-off,” leaving an oxbow lake stranded from the river.
Today the river is a bit different since channels are maintained for navigation and flood control. Dams further up the river provide power generation, irrigation, recreation, and flood control.
along the Missouri River, over the mountains, and eventually to the Pacific Ocean
If you’re wondering where the expedition went on their trip (and where we’re going), here’s the map in 3 parts.
dangers along the Missouri River later in the 1800s
Another stop we made in Kansas City, Mo., was the museum for the Steamboat Arabia that hit a snag and sank in the Missouri River mud.
On September 5, 1856, the Steamboat Arabia hit a log snag at Quindaro Bend, 10 miles north of Kansas City, and sank into 15 feet of water. The passengers and crew survived (probably because the water was so shallow), but the “Great White Arabia” and her 200-ton frontier cargo were lost to the river. We did learn as we were walking around that 80% of the supplies on the boat had been pre-purchased by shops along the way for the frontier people who wanted them. Most of the passengers onboard were women and children who were going to meet their husbands and fathers who had already gone west to make a life for his family.
Walking through the museum was really interesting, but since it really isn’t a part of our Louis and Clark expedition, we’ll just give you a sample of what was on the boat.
A few years ago we went to see the Bertrand (just north of Omaha on the Missouri River), a paddle wheel boat that sank into the mud of the Missouri in 1865 on its way to the gold fields in Montana after the Civil War. We got to see items like these from the Arabia that had been recovered.
The next few posts will take us beyond the Louis & Clark expedition, but the information was so interesting that we wanted to share it with you.
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