Thanks to the efforts of several local people, the Interior Department will move its National Historic Landmark showing the location of the centuries-old Indian campsite near Lolo used by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805 and 1806.
The campsite is presently identified as being near the confluence of the Bitterroot River and Lolo Creek.
“It's amazing it's done,” said Dan Hall, whose company, Western Cultural, unearthed the evidence that the campsite was about a mile (as the crow flies) away from where the historic landmark was placed in 1960.
Hall began working with the Travelers' Rest Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation in 1999 to identify the exact location of the campsite.
He coordinated numerous meetings involving chapter members, local landowners, local, state and federal agencies, prominent Lewis and Clark scholars and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. And the fieldwork of Hall and his crew discovered evidence of a latrine used by the Corps of Discovery 2 1/2 miles up Lolo Creek.
Hall's final report, in December of 2003, underwent extensive peer review and was accepted by the American Archaeological Society as an important contribution to the field.
Hall said it never would have come to pass without the efforts of Missoula County officials, Travelers' Rest chapter members, and the help of the history, geology and archaeology departments at the University of Montana.
The chapter members got the ball rolling, Hall said. “They were reading the journals, and realized the confluence of the rivers didn't make sense” as the location of the campsite.
The Missoula Historic Preservation Office and the Office of Planning and Grants were instrumental, as were the Missoula County commissioners, who traveled to the Flathead Reservation to meet with tribal elders about investigating the campground used for centuries by their ancestors.
“The county commissioners went the extra mile to make sure this project went through,” Hall said.
There are more than 2,400 National Historic Landmarks - they range from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York to the Alamo in Texas - and being designated as such opens up federal funding possibilities that could help secure Travelers' Rest in one of the state's fastest-growing areas according to Loren Flynn, executive director of the Travelers' Rest Preservation and Heritage Association.
There are 23 National Historic Landmarks in Montana, ranging from pictograph caves near Billings to Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park, and include the only other spot where Lewis and Clark left evidence of their journey through Montana.
Pompey's Pillar, where Lewis etched his name, is a National Historic Landmark.
The evidence Hall and his team uncovered at Travelers' Rest was not nearly so obvious.
It was mercury in the soil.
Before the expedition left St. Louis, Meriwether Lewis conferred with Dr. Benjamin Rush, who gave him a supply of pills - called “Rush's Thunderbolts” - that induced diarrhea. Doctors in the early 1800s believed that purging everything from the body was the way to fight sickness and disease, and Rush's toxic concoction - which was 60 percent mercury - certainly did that.
The Lewis and Clark journals reveal that two members of the expedition were sick during their stay at Travelers' Rest, and so were likely prescribed Rush's Thunderbolts.
Finding mercury in the soil, 300 feet from where a central fire pit had been, was the key. The expedition followed a military handbook called “Revolutionary War Drill Manual” by Frederick William Baron von Steuben to set up campsites, and he insisted that latrines be located exactly 300 feet from the cooking area.
By the time other explorers, such as John Mullan or Wallace Stevens, might have camped in the area, Baron von Steuben's handbook had been replaced.
Hall's team also discovered a button from the era, a blue trading bead, melted lead, charcoal from a cookfire and a musket ball. Nowhere along the expedition's 8,000-mile route of May 1804 to September 1806 has so much physical evidence been found, Hall said.
But getting the landmark changed was no easy task.
“It was very complicated,” said Allan Mathews, who was Missoula County Historic Preservation officer when the quest began. “It's tough to get a National Historic Landmark boundary changed. People don't want to admit they weren't correct in the first place.”
Hall agreed.
“It was incredibly difficult,” he said. “There were times everybody wanted to walk away from the table.”
The biggest obstacle was debate over whether the site should be excavated to look for evidence.
“It's always assumed that archeology by nature is destructive,” Hall said. “That's where the opposition came from.”
Former U.S. Rep. Pat Williams of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West kept the lines of communication open between all parties, Hall said.
“He was kind of the unofficial herder of cats,” Hall said.
Norton also expanded Butte's National Historic Landmark designation to include Anaconda.
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 523-5260 or vdevlin@missoulian.com
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