Rediscovering Missouri

Lewis and Clark bicentennial workshop meets in Cape

By Sam Blackwell ~ Southeast Missourian

On Aug. 28, 2003, St. Charles, Mo., bed and breakfast owner Peter Geery and 30 to 45 other re-enactors will climb into a 55-foot keelboat, a 49-foot red pirogue and a 39-foot white pirogue in Elizabeth, Pa., to begin recreating the expedition that opened the American West.

On Nov. 22, they are expected to arrive in Commerce, Mo., one of the spots where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery stopped on their way up the Mississippi River nearly 200 years ago. On Nov. 24-26, the re-enactors in period military uniforms will set up camp in Cape Girardeau. Twenty-eight months and 8,000 miles after setting out, they will end up, like Lewis and Clark, at Great Falls, Mont.

Volunteers for the re-enactment are still sought. Being in a boat on the river in November on a rainy 40-degree day is "fantastic," Geery says.

He was one of the speakers Tuesday at the day-long Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Community Workshop held at the Show Me Center Tuesday. Seventy-four people registered for the workshop, the first held outside Jefferson City, Mo., to coordinate plans for local, state and national events tied to the bicentennial. Besides state officials, the workshop attracted a number of interested local parties, including Southeast President Ken Dobbins.

Fiddler Dennis Stroughmatt, a historian who preserves Cajun and French tunes, provided music at lunch. Washington, Mo., artist Gary R. Lucy, who specializes in historical paintings, brought some of his Lewis and Clark depictions.

Missouri tourism is expected to increase by 10 percent a year leading up to the commemoration, and is predicted to jump 70 percent in 2004, says Doug Eiken, executive director of the Missouri Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commission.

One of the goals of the Missouri commission is to assure that diversity is part of the commemoration. The Corps of Discovery had one black member and several Native Americans. Two people who were scheduled to speak about the commemoration and diversity Tuesday were unable to attend the meeting.

Many organizations are involved. The state Department of Natural Resources is placing 90 interpretive signs along the route Lewis and Clark followed. The Missouri National Guard is making sure people know the Corps of Discovery was a military expedition. The National Park Service is sponsoring the Corps of Discovery II, two tractor-trailers that will follow the route, stopping at two-week intervals to set up an educational center where local groups can make presentations.

Dick Williams of the National Park Service said the progress of the Corps of Discovery II can be followed on the Internet. Cape Girardeau is one of the communities that has applied for a stop by the Corps of Discovery II.

Mark Kross of the Missouri Department of Transportation said road construction projects are being scheduled so that they do not hinder people from being able to drive and see re-enactors or the Corps of Discovery II.

During an afternoon session, forums were held on coordinating events along the Mississippi River, on the educational opportunities provided by the commemoration, and on the issue of diversity in the activities.

During the re-enactment, Geery will play the role of Sgt. John Ordway, one of the expedition's invaluable journal writers. When it was over, Ordway settled in Tywappity Bottoms, site of present-day Commerce. Eventually he sold his land there and moved to New Madrid just in time for the devastating 1811 earthquake.

Information about volunteering for the St. Charles Discovery Expedition is available at www.lewisandclark.net or by phoning Geery at (636) 916-5344.

St. Charles will hold its annual Heritage Days festival May 18-19, a celebration of the time Lewis and Clark spent in St. Charles. On the way west, they were invited to a dance and to dinners and attended church services.

Says Geery, "It is one of the few places in Missouri where you can really walk where they walked."

Cape Girardeau also is one of those places. Jane Randol Jackson, chairwoman of the Cape Girardeau Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commission, updated the construction of the Red House Interpretive Center, a reconstruction of the trading post where Cape Girardeau founder Don Louis Lorimier lived. Meriwether Lewis dined with Lorimier's family as he and Clark headed north toward the St. Louis area.

Writer Steven Ambrose has described St. Charles as the place where the party left civilization.

"There would be no more incoming letters, no orders, no commissions, no fresh supplies, no reinforcements, nothing reaching them, until they returned."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182