Lewis and Clark Campsite: July 30-August 2, 1804

On July 30 Joseph Field brought in an animal the French boatmen called brárow, from blaireau, and the Pawnee, Clark wrote, cho car tooch. It was an American badger. Clark thought it shaped and sized like a beaver; Lewis had it skinned and the skin stuffed to send back to St. Louis, probably the first zoological specimen he preserved on the expedition. Jefferson later called the animal unknown outside Europe, though it had been described from Canadian specimens in 1778. The same day George Drouillard caught a small beaver alive and the men took great quantities of catfish.

What the plaque says

Lewis and Clark Campsite: July 30-August 2, 1804 On July 30 the explorers arrived at the bluff where Fort Atkinson would be built less than two decades later. Clark wrote, "The Situation of this place which we Call Council Bluff which is handsom ellevated a Spot well Calculated... for a fort to Command the Countrey and river the low bottom above high water & well Situated under the Command of the Hill for Houses to trade with the Natives." Four days later the Oto Indians, who lived in a village along the Platte River, came to the Lewis and Clark camp for a council. Captain Clark "mad up a Small preasent for those people in perpotion to their Consiqunce also a package with a meadile to accompany a Speech for the Grand Chief after Brackfast we collected those Indians under an orning of our Main Sail... Delivered a long Speech to them expressive of our journey and the wirkes of our Government, Some advice to them and Directions how They were to Conduct themselves." Nebraska State Historical Society National Park Service

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Atkinson State Historical Park — steps away
  The first U.S. Army post west of the Missouri, a garrison town of more than a thousand people on Council Bluff from 1820 to 1827, rebuilt on its own foundations.
• Winter Quarters and the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery — 8.7 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.
• Malcolm X Birthsite — 12 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.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 14 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.

More markers nearby

• Fort Atkinson — 0.2 mi
• Fort Calhoun Schools at Washington Square — 0.4 mi
• Fort Atkinson — 0.6 mi
• The Death of Marshal Suverkrubbe — 0.6 mi