Jefferson National Expansion Memorial - The Lewis and Clark Journey of Discovery (U.S. National Park Service)

Our Lewis and Clark pages are in the process of being converted to our new web site. We are adding new links every day but it will be some time before this page is complete. If you need information immediately that is not yet live please contact us.

Thomas Jefferson's Grand

Idea . . .

. . . Lewis and Clark's Great Adventure

". . . the object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river, may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce . . ."

Welcome to Jefferson National Expansion Memorial's Lewis and Clark pages!

Click on links below to explore the Lewis and Clark pages.

Cahokia Courthouse

Bicentennial Symposia
To commemorate the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial held a series of four scholarly symposia on various topics related to the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition, early exploration in the West and other related topics. Click here to see the schedules, read speaker biographies, and see the full text of some of the papers presented.

Corps of Discovery

Learn about the people involved in the journey! Here we have short biographical sketches of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, York, Sacajawea, Toussaint Charbonneau, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau "Little Pompey", and all the other members of the expedition.

The Journey

Learn about the journey of the Corps of Discovery. This section contains information about the native people that the Corps encountered, fossils, geography, mapmaking, science of the expedition and a photo album of places, plants and animals described in the journals.

Timelines

The timelines in this section provide a chronological overview of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They chronicle the major events of the expedition from April 20, 1803 to September 23, 1806.

A drawing of St. Louis as it looked in 1804

Circa 1804

The city of St. Louis in 1804 as Lewis and Clark would have experienced it. Explore this section to see the layout of the city and learn more about the buildings that used to stand on what is now the Gateway Arch grounds.

Activities and Kids Section

Here you will find games for younger explorers, quizzes for all explorers, wallpaper for your PC and Macintosh, and lesson information for teachers and instructors.

Graphic of some of the educational topics in this section such as history, forensic science, mystery, art appreciation, Native Americans Languages, and secret codes.

Teacher Resources

Teacher resources on the Lousiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark Expedition. Here you will find curricula for K-12, information about what education was like in the Lewis and Clark era, and a curriculum built around Patrick Gass' journal.