Turn left on Thruston, then left on Filson Avenue to park near the homesite and cemetery. Directions: From I-264 take Poplar Level Road north.Information: Metro Parks Department, 50.Location: George Rogers Clark Park, Poplar Level Road and Thruston Avenue, Louisville.
The family cemetery and a cypress tree dating to the Clarks’ residence are all that remain today. The farm once included over three hundred acres and had two mills on the waters of Beargrass Creek. The outbuildings and the remains of the house were razed in 1917. Located in present George Rogers Clark Park, the Clark family homesite served as the residence of William Clark and York from 1785 to 1803. Explore the Falls of the Ohio and its Lewis and Clark legacy. It is possible today to stand where the captains and the nucleus of the Corps of Discovery stood two hundred years ago to visit where they visited and to view expedition letters and artifacts. It is with us in the printed word, in institutional collections, and in landmarks. The world has changed much in the two centuries since Lewis and Clark traversed the Falls area, but the legacy is still with us today. The journey influenced the course of American history. Two hundred years have passed since their departure to the west and return to the Falls of the Ohio in November 1806. They formed the foundation for what historians describe as the most famous exploring venture in the history of America. The men who met at and pushed off from the Falls in October 1803 formed one-third of the expedition’s permanent party. The recruits Clark secured and the two that Lewis brought with him entered the annals of history as the “Nine Young Men from Kentucky.” These first permanent members made significant contributions toward the success of the endeavor. York became the first African American to cross the United States from coast to coast. With them went local recruits – handpicked by Clark – and Clark’s enslaved African American York. On October 26, 1803, Lewis and Clark, together with the nucleus of the Corps of Discovery, set off down the Ohio River from Clarksville, Indiana, on a journey that would take them to the Pacific Ocean and back.
On October 14, 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark met in Louisville, Kentucky, thus actually forming one of the most famous and successful partnerships in history. So began the historic partnership of Lewis and Clark and the birth of the Corps of Discovery. “find out and engage some good hunters, stout, healthy, unmarried men, accustomed to the woods, and capable of bearing bodily fatigue in a pretty considerable degree: should any young men answering this description be found in your neighborhood I would thank you to give information of them on my arivall at the falls of the Ohio.”
If therefore there is anything under those circumstances, in this enterprise, which would induce you to participate with me in it’s fatiegues, it’s dangers and it’s honors, believe me there is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself.” “Thus my friend … you have a summary view of the plan, the means and the objects of this expedition. This page is based on a brochure published in the summer of 2002 by the Falls of the Ohio Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Committee highlighting Lewis and Clark’s connections to the Falls of the Ohio area.Īt the Falls of the Ohio in the summer of 1803, William Clark received a letter from Meriwether Lewis inviting him to help command an expedition to explore the Louisiana territory: Lewis and Clark in Kentucky > Kentucky Places > Louisville and the Falls of the Ohio > Lewis and Clark at the Falls of the Ohio Lewis and Clark at the Falls of the Ohio