Fort Clatsop Suggested Historic Area Report

B. Synopsis of the history of the site

President Thomas Jefferson's instructions to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark required them to "explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as . . . may offer the most direct . . . communication across this continent." The explorers considered their mission completed when, on a bleak November day in 1805, they saw the broad tidal estuary of the Columbia River from a point on the north bank a short distance above Grays Bay. After visiting the seashore, they crossed to the south side of the Columbia to seek a winter campsite which would be more sheltered from the ocean winds and more abundantly supplied with game. A suitable location was found on the first high ground encountered above the mouth of the present Lewis and Clark River. Here, on December 7, a camp was made.

A small log fort, 50 feet square, was erected and named "Fort Clatsop." The men moved into it on Christmas Day. While waiting here for the coming of spring, they explored the surrounding country, and a detachment was sent to the seacoast to make salt. Lewis and Clark here rewrote their journals and drew several of the maps which were among the most important products of the expedition. On March 23, 1806, the fort was abandoned, and the homeward journey to St. Louis was commenced.

According to tradition, Fort Clatsop was given by Lewis and Clark to a Clatsop Indian chief, by whom it was occupied sporadically until it fell into ruin. Beginning with the arrival of the Astorians on the Columbia in 1811, the site of Fort Clatsop was an object of interest to travelers, and as late as the 1860's it was occasionally visited by sight-seers. The site was included in a donation land claim during the 1850's, and the remains of the post were obliterated by farming operations.

Between 1899 and 1901 there was a renewed interest in the site on the part of historians, and at least two independent attempts were made to establish the exact location. The memories of early settlers in the region formed the basis of these identifications, which were in agreement and which have won general acceptance. The property on which this site stands was acquired by the Oregon Historical Society in 1901, and it has since been operated as a historic monument open to the public.

That the Lewis and Clark Expedition was a dramatic event of far-reaching importance in the history of the United States is well established, although historians do not agree as to the precise extent of the results. Perhaps Bernard DeVoto summed the matter up best when he wrote: "History is not so divisible as to permit us to say exactly how important the Lewis and Clark expedition was in securing Oregon. . . but it gave not only Oregon but the entire West to the American people as something with which the mind could deal."