Lewis and Clark Campsite: July 21, 1804

The journals that day also note who lived up the river. Clark placed the Otoe (Jiwere) about ten leagues up the Platte's south side and the Panis, the Pawnee, five leagues higher. Gass counted three nations, the Otos, the Panis and the "Loos, or Wolf Indians," whom the editors identify as the Skiri Pawnee. The editors add that Platte is the French rendering of Umóⁿhoⁿ (Omaha) and Oto names meaning flat river, the source of Nebraska's own name. Floyd judged the river "not navigable for Boats," and the hunters brought in deer.

What the plaque says

Lewis and Clark Campsite July 21, 1804 On this day the expedition to the Pacific Ocean passed the Platte River. Captain Clark wrote, "This Great river being much more rapid than the Missourie forces its current against the opposit Shore...we found great dificuelty in passing around the Sand at the mouth of this River. Capt Lewis and My Self with 6 men in a perogue went up this Great river Plate about 1 miles...I am told by one of our Party who wintered two winters on This river that it is much wider above, and does not rise more than five or Six feet....The Indians pass this river in Skin Boats which is flat and will not turn over." Clark mentioned other streams including "Papillion or Butterfly Cr, 18 yds. wide," which empties into the Missouri a few miles north of here. After passing the mouth of the creek, the expedition camped for the night on the Nebraska side. Clark records "a Great number of wolves about us this evening." Nebraska State Historical Society National Park Service

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Durham Museum (Omaha Union Station) — 14 mi
  Omaha's 1931 Union Station, Gilbert Stanley Underwood's Art Deco depot for the Union Pacific, closed to trains in 1971 and kept as a city museum with its waiting room intact.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 15 mi
  Omaha's free art museum, a 1931 Art Deco memorial with two modern pavilions, and the keeper of Karl Bodmer's watercolors from the upper Missouri in 1833 and 1834.
• Malcolm X Birthsite — 17 mi
  The North Omaha lot where Malcolm Little was born in May 1925 and his family was driven out by the Klan, saved by Rowena Moore and now planned as a cultural center.
• Winter Quarters and the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery — 20 mi
  The Latter-day Saint camp of 1846 to 1848 on Omaha land in what is now Florence, where hundreds died the first winter, and the cemetery and trail center beside it.

More markers nearby

• Company A - First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry 1861-1866 — 2.8 mi
• Oto Mission — 2.9 mi
• Fontenelle Bank - County Courthouse — 5.9 mi
• First Presbyterian Church — 6.1 mi