01Biography
William Clark grew up on the Kentucky frontier and served as an army officer, with Meriwether Lewis for a time under his command. In 1803 Lewis invited him to share the leadership of an expedition to the Pacific, and Clark became its chief mapmaker. In October 1805 he named the Snake River Lewis's River after his partner, and that November the Corps reached the mouth of the Columbia.
Clark never traveled the Oregon Trail. His map of the West, printed in 1814, showed Americans the rivers of the Oregon Country. From 1822 until his death he was the government's superintendent of Indian affairs in St. Louis. In 1831 four Nez Perce and Flathead men came to see him there, and a church paper's account of their visit led the Methodists to send missionaries to Oregon.
02Why they matter
Drew the expedition maps that first showed Americans the rivers of the Oregon Country, and in St. Louis received the 1831 visitors whose story sent the first missionaries west.
03How they died
Clark governed Missouri Territory from 1813 to 1820. He kept York, the enslaved man who had gone with him to the Pacific, in slavery until about 1816. He died in St. Louis on September 1, 1838, aged 68.
04Legacy
His grave in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis is marked by a tall granite obelisk raised in 1904. Clarkston, Washington, across the Snake River from Lewiston, Idaho, is named for him.