April 11:

Presentation on Lewis and Clark in the area of St. Joseph, Mo.

 

You’re invited to a fun educational event on Saturday, April 11, that will focus on the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s time near St. Joseph, Mo., in 1804 and 1806.

 

This invitation is from the Missouri-Kansas Riverbend Chapter and the Southern Prairie Region of the Lewis & Clark Trail Alliance.

 

Sarah Elder, manager of Remington Nature Center in historic St. Joseph, will give the 1:30 p.m. presentation at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, 2818 Frederick Avenue. Sarah is a lively speaker with a passionate interest and educational background in history.

 

Prior to Sarah’s talk, a luncheon will be held at 11:30 a.m. at Jake’s Steakhouse, 1620 Edmond St. Here’s the menu. Please RSVP for the luncheon by sending an email to Kay Schaefer, tchrkay@gmail.com.

 

If you have questions about the April 11 event, please contact Kay Schaefer, tchrkay@gmail.com.

 

You may want to build in extra time to tour the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, a cultural arts center with one of the finest collections of 18th- through 21st-century American art in the Midwest.

 

Meanwhile, the Remington Nature Center is an easy 10- to 15-minute drive from the museum. Located along the Missouri River, the nature center is within the St. Michael’s Prairie, the name given to the region around today’s St. Joseph. The Center’s focus ranges from animals that call the area home to understanding what life was like for the first European settlers in the Midwest. Exhibits include barbed wire (an important part of American agriculture), black bears, the Civil War, trappers and woolly mammoths.

 

Sarah’s presentation will thoroughly cover the expedition’s interesting times in the St. Joseph area, but here are just a few brief highlights of what you’re learn:

 

The expedition passed by the area that became today’s St. Joseph on July 4, 1804, on its way up the Missouri. On that day, expedition member “Jos: Fields got bit by a Snake, which was quickly doctered with Bark by Cap Lewis,” according to William Clark’s journal entry. The explorers also reported seeing “great numbers of Goslings to day which Were nearly grown” and “great quantities of fish an Gees…”

 

On the return trip, the expedition camped on St. Michael’s Prairie. This was where they encountered Robert McClellan, who was taking a trading party upriver. He informed the explorers that “people in general in the united States were concerned about us as they had heard that we were all killed…then again they heard that the Spanyards had us in the mines”—this according to Sgt. John Ordway’s journal.

 

If you have questions about the April 11 event, please contact Kay Schaefer, tchrkay@gmail.com.