On November 15, 1805, the United States Corps of Discovery under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark reached the Pacific Ocean at what is now Cape Disappointment State Park in Washington. Washington State Parks now operates the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment.
The Trail:
Shown above is the trail from the parking lot to the center.
The View:
The Interpretive Center:
Visitors to the Interpretive Center are initially greeted by a 15-star flag similar to the one carried by the Corps of Discovery.
The display of models shown above show the different kinds of watercraft used by the Corps of Discovery.
The members of the Corps carried a number of books with them on their journey.
The book that inspired the idea of this expedition, and one of the books carried with them, was Voyages from Montreal by Sir Alexander MacKenzie, the first European to cross North America. MacKenzie crossed the continental divide much farther to the north and it was only a relatively short distance from the divide to the ocean. When the Corps of Discovery crossed the continental divide, they still had 600 miles to the Pacific.
Shown above is the type of portable writing desk used by members of the Expedition to record their journals. Journals were kept by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, John Ordway, Patrick Gass, Charles Floyd, and Joseph Whitehouse. Robert Frazer and Nathaniel Hale Pryor may have kept journals, but these have never been found.
Shown above is a replica on the dugout canoes built by the members of the expedition. The display includes a hands-on experiment on loading a canoe so that it doesn’t tip over.
Some of the clothing and equipment used by the Corps of Discovery is shown in the displays above.
After spending some time exploring the Cape Disappointment area, the Captains polled the members of the party to see if they should remain in the area, or if they should go south of the river for the winter. It was decided that they should go south and so they crossed the river and established Fort Clatsop. Because the Shoshone woman Sacajewa was allowed to vote, there are some poorly educated historians who claim that this was the first time a woman was allowed to vote in the United States.
