Lewis and Clark Campsite: August 21, 1804

The rocks that sickened Lewis came from the bluff that begins just above Jackson. On August 22, 1804, Clark found it held alum, copperas, cobalt and pyrites, and John Ordway described an alum stone cliff about 50 feet high. Pounding a sample, Lewis was "near being Poisened by the Smell," Clark wrote, naming the substance as arsenic or cobalt, and that evening Lewis took a dose of salts to carry off the effects. The editors of the University of Nebraska edition of the journals call the mineral indeterminable.

What the plaque says

Lewis and Clark Campsite August 21, 1804 When the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean went through this area their mood was undoubtedly gloomy. On the previous day they had buried their comrade, Sergeant Charles Floyd, who died of a ruptured appendix. Although he was the expedition's only fatality, the explorers suffered from a variety of ill- nesses and accidents. On August 22 Captain Lewis became ill. Although the cause is un- known, Captain Clark mistakenly believed it was caused by arsenic in rocks Lewis had examined. On the return journey in 1806, Lewis was injured in a hunting accident. On this day the explorers passed the Sioux River. Clark was told about a place high up this river where "a Creek Coms in which passes thro Clifts of red rock which the Indians make pipes of, and when the different nations Meet at those queries all is piece." This is now known as Pipestone National Monument, located in southwestern Minnesota. The party camped along the Missouri River northeast of here. Nebraska State Historical Society National Park Service

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ponca State Park — 11 mi
  Oak ravines and bluffs at the downstream end of the Missouri's last unchannelized reach in Nebraska, with a three-state overlook and the river's resource and education center.
• Blackbird Scenic Overlook — 26 mi
  A pull-off on US-75 at Macy on the Umóⁿhoⁿ reservation, looking over the Missouri valley toward the hill where Wazhiⁿga' sabe, Blackbird, was buried after the smallpox of 1800.
• National Music Museum — 29 mi
  One of the great collections of musical instruments in the world, on a college campus in a prairie town, built around a band teacher's thousands of horns, fiddles and curiosities.

More markers nearby

• St. John's, 1856 — 1.4 mi
• You Are Now Entering South Dakota — 7.6 mi
• Territorial Church — 9.3 mi
• Tonwantonga — 9.4 mi