Fort Osage

Quick Facts

Location:

107 Osage Street, Sibley, MO 64088

Designation:

National Register of Historic Places, National Historic Landmark

MANAGED BY:

Fort Osage National Historic Landmark

Lewis and Clark NHT Visitor Centers and Museums

This map shows a range of features associated with the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, which commemorates the 1803-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition. The trail spans a large portion of the North American continent, from the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. The trail is comprised of the historic route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, an auto tour route, high potential historic sites (shown in black), visitor centers (shown in orange), and pivotal places (shown in green). These features can be selected on the map to reveal additional information. Also shown is a base map displaying state boundaries, cities, rivers, and highways. The map conveys how a significant area of the North American continent was traversed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and indicates the many places where visitors can learn about their journey and experience the landscape through which they traveled.

Fort Osage is a High Potential Historic Site on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.

Fort Osage, one of the first military outposts of the Louisiana Territory, was established by Clark in 1808. The Corps of Discovery first passed through the area on June 23, 1804, although no mention regarding the site’s suitability for a fort was noted in the journals. At the time, Clark only documented an island that was then across the river from the later site of Fort Osage. However, when he returned in 1808 as a brigadier general in the Louisiana Territory militia and U.S. agent for Indian Affairs, Clark referenced his initial un­documented impression of the location, writing that he “examined the Situation and the points of a Small Island which is opposit, found the River could be completely defended and Situation elegant, this Situation I had examined in the year 1804 and was delighted with it and am equally so now, […] and fixed on the spot for the fort and other buildings.” In 1810, as Nicholas Biddle prepared the expedition journals for publica­tion, he interviewed and corresponded with Clark in order to elaborate on details within the text. Based on information provided by Clark at this time, the first edition of the journals, published in 1814, revised the original June 23, 1804 journal entry to insert the text: “Directly opposite on the south, is a high command­ing position, more than seventy feet above high-water mark, and overlooking the river, which is here but of little width; this spot has many advantages for a fort, and trading house with the Indians.” Following aban­donment in 1827, archeologists rediscovered the fort’s foundations in the 1940s. It was then reconstructed to portray the circa-1812 appearance.