Lewis and Clark's Expedition west began in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh has had many firsts over the years and one of them involves being the launching point for Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery back in 1803.

Andy Masich, the president of the Heinz History Center, says that Pittsburgh was the best place to start such an epic quest, which back then was the equivalent of a moon shot.

"Pittsburgh was the gateway to the west," Masich said. "There was a fort here, Fort Fayette, and that is where a young officer Meriwether Lewis was stationed when he got a message from President Thomas Jefferson saying, 'I need someone to lead an expedition to explore the western wilds.' What is out there? Nobody knew."

Lewis was perfectly suited for this role. He was the pay master at Fort Fayette, which sat right where the convention center in Pittsburgh is today. He was a resourceful Army officer, skilled in wilderness survival and navigation, an excellent shot, as well as a naturalist and a diplomat.

While in Pittsburgh throughout the summer of 1803, Lewis gathered men and supplies, acquired the expedition's famous Newfoundland dog, Seaman, and had their massive keel boat for navigating the many rivers in the west built, which Masich says was a bit of an issue.

"The boat builder that Lewis contracted with, was kind of a ne'er-do-well," Masich said. "He was often found drunk; Lewis would go daily to cudgel and encourage and plead with him to get the boat finished. Because Lewis knew that in the summer of 1803, the river levels would drop during the summertime, and he was afraid he wasn't going to be able to get out of town."        

Finally, in the late summer, the boat was finished. Lewis and his crew stepped onboard and despite low water levels, on Aug. 30, the Corps of Discovery was off, down the Allegheny River, with their sights set on the west. That first day, however, they didn't make it very far.

They made it to Brunot Island on the Ohio River, some 2.5 miles away from where they launched. Today, the island is home to a power plant, but back then, it was just a small rural community. Dozens of people gathered to wish them well and Lewis not only stopped to thank them for their support, but he even held a demonstration with his new state-of-the-art air rifle. That demonstration, however, almost ended in disaster when the gun misfired, grazing a woman in the crowd.

Luckily, that woman recovered, and the Corps shoved off again, only this time to face that challenge that Lewis had been fearing for months: the low water levels in the river.

"They go 500 yards and get stuck on a sand bar," Masich said. "They had to unload the 10 tons of supplies with ropes, pull the boat off the sandbar, then reload the supplies from shallow draft canoes and pirogues and then shove off again. This happened three times, they got stuck three times before they got to McKees Rocks, where Lewis made his first entry in his now famous journals of Lewis and Clark, 'men exhausted, gave them each a dram of whiskey and put them to bed.'"

The journey, of course, would continue on the next day and for two more long years. Lewis would eventually meet up with his co-captain, William Clark, and together with some 30 others, they make it to the Pacific Ocean and back, mapping and exploring much of what is today the upper portion of the American West.

Masich says the journey the Corps of Discovery made can't be overstated enough because of the impact their expedition had on the country. It all started right here in Pittsburgh, along the banks of the Allegheny River. 

"Pittsburgh was considered by Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis to be the gateway to the West," said Masich. "People who were headed west had to be funneled through these rivers and take the Ohio, to the Mississippi, to the Missouri River. And that's what Lewis did, he charted that course. That tens of thousands, that hundreds of thousands, of westering Americans followed in the years that came after. So this begins the great western movement for America."