Where the Ohio Meets the Mississippi: Lewis and Clark at the Confluence

Islands in the Mississippi River built from dredged sand by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program, to improve the river's aquatic habitat. Credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Six days at the junction

After more than 900 miles on the Ohio River, the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the Mississippi. On the evening of November 14, 1803, they arrived, in the journal's words, "on the point at which the Ohio and Mississippi form there junchon," and camped there.

For the next six days they took observations to fix the latitude and longitude of the confluence and explored the area. On the Missouri side of the river they met a group of Shawnee and Delaware — the expedition's first known contact with Native Americans. After visiting the former site of Fort Jefferson, downriver of the confluence, they crossed to an American trading camp, where they found "a number of our men who had left camp contrary to instructions & drunk." On November 20 they left the confluence and began working their way up the Mississippi.

A meeting point on the move

In 1803 the rivers met inside what are now the city limits of Cairo, Illinois, below 2nd Street. Since then the confluence has moved south.

People have reshaped the landscape through settlement, development and farming, and engineering projects have altered both rivers for navigation, flood control, hydropower and recreation. Climate change has played a part as well. Extreme events, such as the devastating 2011 flooding at Cairo, can overwhelm engineered defences — a sign that the rivers have become what researchers call a "complex human-natural system." Record rains, droughts and floods have spurred the continuing Upper Mississippi River Restoration Project, which aims to make the system more resilient.

The site today

The confluence sits where Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri meet, in Alexander, Ballard and Mississippi Counties, on land in mixed ownership. It is also known as Fort Defiance. In 1960 the site was dedicated as Cairo Point–Fort Defiance State Park, with the Boatman's Memorial observation tower built at the confluence, and in 2005 a sculpture, Proceeding On, was installed to mark the expedition's time there.

The National Park Service lists the confluence as one of the high potential historic sites of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail's eastern extension, from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, chosen for its sense of place and the historic remnants that survive.

Sources

Based on "Confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers," from the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail's series on climate change, published by the National Park Service; rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The site's history, location and present-day details come from the National Park Service, Pittsburgh to the Pacific: High Potential Historic Sites of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail (2022), p. 26: https://www.nps.gov/lecl/getinvolved/upload/2022_LCNHT_HPHS_Report_508compliantUPDATE-2.pdf
• The article also cites Joseph A. Mussulman's "The Mouth of the Ohio" (Discover Lewis & Clark), Kenneth R. Olson and Lois Wright Morton's Management of Mississippi and Ohio River Landscapes, a Wisconsin climate assessment, and USGS Circular 1375 on river engineering and dams in the Mississippi system.
• The journal's spelling ("there junchon") is kept as written.