Fort Osage National Historic Landmark

William Clark picked this bluff in 1808 because the Missouri slows beneath it and a lookout can see the river for miles. The post, first called Fort Clark, had two jobs. Captain Eli Clemson's 81 officers and men of the 1st U.S. Infantry garrisoned it, and a government factory traded goods to the Osage at set prices, part of a federal system meant to undercut private traders and tie the nations to the United States.

The trade house had a price. On November 10, 1808, leaders of the Great and Little Osage signed a treaty here that drew a line due south from the fort to the Arkansas River and ceded everything east of it, along with the land north of the Missouri. In return the United States promised the factory, a blacksmith and a mill, and annuities of $800 to the Great Osage and $400 to the Little Osage. Osage objected at once that the proper leaders had not signed, and Clark later admitted that if he was to be damned it would be for making that treaty. The Osage call themselves Ni-U-Ko'n-Ska, Children of the Middle Waters, and their nation is governed today from Pawhuska, Oklahoma.

The garrison left in June 1813 during the War of 1812 and returned in October 1815. Congress abolished the factory system in the spring of 1822, and the post closed that summer. Jackson County Parks + Rec runs the reconstructed fort and an education center with about 4,000 square feet of exhibits.