ST. LOUIS Museum honors historic journey

President Thomas Jefferson initiated the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804.
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A yearlong exhibit at the Gateway Arch museum examines St. Louis' role as the launch site for Lewis and Clark's historic expedition to the Pacific Coast in 1804.
The exhibit, "Lewis & amp; Clark: Imagining the Expedition from St. Louis," opened Dec. 6 and will remain on view through January 2005 at the Gateway Arch Museum of Westward Expansion. It's one of three dozen events in the St. Louis region marking the expedition's bicentennial. But it is the only one that explores the five months that Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their group spent in St. Louis and at a nearby Illinois fort preparing for a May 20 departure in search of the Missouri River's source and beyond.
"The Arch is a memorial to [President Thomas] Jefferson's vision to expand the country westward," said Myron Freedman, the museum's exhibits curator. "The planning for that largely happened in St. Louis. This exhibit is to remind people of the significance of this spot of ground."
Exhibit's details
The exhibit is grouped into five sections:
UWhat St. Louis was like from 1803 to 1804, complete with a touch-screen interactive map of St. Louis in 1804, with descriptions and sketches of prominent residents' homes.
UA map section that includes rudimentary maps and the tools used to make them. Clark was only 40 miles off the mark on his maps, according to Bob Moore, National Park Service historian at the Arch museum.
UThe expedition's scientific accomplishments, including the identification and naming of 300 plants and animals never listed before, such as the tern, Missouri beaver, Oregon bobcat and the sagebrush.
UDiplomatic efforts with the American Indians, including gifts of the Jefferson peace medal to top-ranking chiefs of the territory's biggest tribes. Moore said the gesture illustrated that the Americans were in charge now and that they wanted to be friends.
UProfiles of key members of the expedition, including York, the only black man and Clark's personal slave, whose near-equal treatment during the journey ended when he returned home.
Louisiana Purchase
Jefferson ordered the expedition after making the Louisiana Purchase from France, which gave the United States the right to negotiate for American Indians' land west of the Mississippi. The swath of more than 800,000 square miles of land stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. It would eventually be cut into all or part of 15 American states.
Jefferson also wanted Lewis and Clark to set up a strong fur trade network with various American Indian tribes. Tribe trappers were trading with the British and Spanish, and he wanted to cut them out.
"Americans were so expansionist," Moore said. "They were hungry for free land. They carried a political message that said: We're in charge."
In St. Louis, a town of 1,000 people in 1803, prominent citizens and fur traders offered Lewis and Clark help and insight into what awaited them upriver. They were also feted and entertained at dinners and balls throughout the town.
Lewis pumped $40,000 into the St. Louis economy on supplies for the expedition. Powerful fur-trading families introduced Lewis to American Indian chiefs with whom they traded and arranged for French boatmen to join the expedition.
The St. Louis settlement that Lewis and Clark encountered was "an other-worldly place," whose architecture resembled buildings in Normandy, France, where the two-wheel cart was the mode of transportation and where French and American Indian languages were spoken.
St. Louis hosted the ceremony marking the formal transfer of Upper Louisiana to the United States on March 9, 1804, and the region will host many commemorative events during the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. They include, in addition to the exhibit at the arch: an exhibit at the Missouri Historical Society in Forest Park in St. Louis, opening Jan. 14; the "Three Flags Festival," marking the Upper Louisiana transfer, scheduled for March 10 to 14 in St. Louis; and a festival marking the anniversary of Lewis and Clark's departure from the eastern banks of the Mississippi, May 13 to 16, in the Illinois communities of Hartford, Madison, Alton, Edwardsville and Godfrey.