Kansas State Capitol - Online tour - Lewis and Clark in Kansas
Lewis and Clark in Kansas by David H. Overmyer, first floor rotunda, southwest corner
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left their camp near St. Louis with 43 men on May 14, 1804, and on June 26 reached the junction of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. There they stayed for three days while they gathered information on the area, including facts about the Kansa Indians. By July 1 they were opposite the site of Leavenworth and on July 3 they stayed in present Atchison County. To greet the Fourth of July the explorers fired a shot from a small cannon on their keelboat. Although the Kansas portion of the famous journey was brief, Lewis and Clark did gather considerable information about eastern Kansas and its inhabitants and they provided a map which, despite its inaccuracies, gave the federal government more data than it previously had.
