This Frequency episode is devoted to one of the biggest events in Sioux City history, which came before it was even a town. Back in the early 1800’s, the United States of America was a growing entity, and the President Thomas Jefferson wanted to know about the western lands that were recently acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.
That resulted in a huge expedition up the Missouri River from St. Louis and eventually to the Pacific Ocean and back, via the 1804 to 1806 Corps of Discovery expedition. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark carried out the arduous journey with men on keelboats.
Sergeant Charles Floyd, a 22-year-old from Kentucky, was the sole Lewis and Clark Expedition member to die during the trek, at the spot that is now Sioux City.
The expedition results led to the opening of the West, and following migration led to the creation of new states. However, all that region had been well known as living places for Native Americans who became forcibly displaced in the next few decades.
Just before the year 2000, Siouxlanders took note of the approaching 200th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. They began planning for ways to commemorate what was anticipated to be a slew of people coming to recall the trek and what it meant.
As those scads of tourists hit Sioux City, a museum was created at the Missouri Riverfront, with the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, which opened in 2002. It has interactive and animated exhibits exploring the July-September 1804 portion of the expedition.
The 200th anniversary of the expedition going through Siouxland was indeed a huge event in August 2004.
So we look back at that flurry of activity 20 years ago that resulted in centers in Sioux City and Onawa, Iowa, which drew people then, and to this day.
The guests for that look back over 20 years are Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center Executive Director Tracy Bennett, board member Bruce Miller, and Amanda Gibson, who is Education Coordinator at the museum.
Click on the audio link above to hear the entire show.
*What's The Frequency, Episode 29.
