While the Corps of Discovery passed by what we know of as Fort Benton before they came to the Great Falls that the Mandan had warned them about, much of the history of this town happened later in the 1800s when the steamboats made it up the Missouri River with their passengers and goods. This post is about the area as Lewis and Clark knew it. The next post covers the town that started Montana and a little about how it looks now. While we did spent one night in Montana before we arrived here, that was just as we were passing through. Now that we’re in a place for almost a week, we decided it was time to add the state to our map.
June 13-15, 1805. ‘Just to be sure they had made the right choice [to follow the northern fork], the explorers decided that Lewis and a small party should go ahead overland until they reached either the great falls the Indians at Fort Mandan had described or the ‘snowy mountains’ [Rocky Mountains].”
The Corps of Discovery would have used their boats to go past this area we know as Fort Benton. A little ways later the land flattens out so they could start walking overland. But let’s look at this spot on the Missouri River while the expedition was still on the water.
One June 15, Clark gets the canoes and white pirogue as close to the falls as possible. On June 16, Lewis meets up with the expedition at the Lower Portage Camp (top of the previous map). On June 21 they actually begin the 18-mile overland portage around the falls.
Soon we’ll be looking at the falls (all of them) and the process that the men used of getting around them.
As a side note, I thought you might be interesting in seeing why the bison were so important in the Plains for the Natives and the early adventurers.
But now, let’s look at the interesting history of Fort Benton.
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