Lewis and Clark Expedition: July 24, 1806

By editor

Laurel, Yellowstone County, Montana

On the morning of July 24, 1806, Captain William Clark paused at the mouth of the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River, committing to paper the first known written record of the land that would centuries later become Laurel, Montana. His notation on the expedition’s map described this place not merely as a geographical waypoint, but as "the best place for commerce" in the region. This assessment, made amid the towering crags and restless currents of the Yellowstone watershed, reflected a keen eye for both natural resources and strategic positioning.

Clark’s party had been voyaging downstream for nine days since departing the Three Forks of the Missouri River, where the Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison rivers converge. At that time, the expedition had fashioned two dugout canoes from the cottonwood snags abundant along the riverbanks near the headwaters. These vessels, hollowed with careful precision, caught the swift summer current that courses through the Yellowstone Plateau, a geological province carved by volcanic activity and sculpted over millennia by fluvial erosion. The Clarks Fork, or Roche Jaune as Clark called it--French for Yellow Rock--entered the Yellowstone from the south at this juncture, draining the rugged Beartooth Plateau and the alpine meadows surrounding today’s Cooke City.

The region’s geology is dominated by volcanic breccia and tuff, deposits from eruptions of the Absaroka volcanic field approximately 50 million years ago. The river itself cuts through sedimentary layers laid down in the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, exposing strata rich in fossils and minerals. This dynamic landscape, with its steep canyon walls and shifting channels, provided the expedition with both challenge and sustenance.

Clark’s camp lay just west of the present-day marker, on a low floodplain known locally as Clark’s Bottom. Here, amid cottonwood groves (Populus deltoides) and dense willows (Salix spp.), the men replenished their food supplies. They harvested wild berries and dried meat from buffalo they had hunted upriver. Two additional dugout canoes were constructed on the shore, increasing their capacity to navigate the Yellowstone’s swift waters. The sound of the river--its white water rushing over cobbles and gravel bars--filled the air, mingled with the calls of cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) darting above.

Yet the camp was not without peril. Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor, charged with driving the party’s horses along the riverbank, faced a sudden and disquieting loss. During the night, a raiding party of Native Americans seized all the horses in a single, swift strike. Pryor and his men, now without horses, fashioned bull boats--round, buffalo-hide rafts stretched over willow frames--to continue their descent down the Yellowstone. Their resourcefulness under duress exemplified the expedition’s resilience in a landscape that offered both bounty and hardship.

The theft of the horses was more than a mere inconvenience; horses represented vital mobility and strength. Clark’s journals record the event with pragmatic brevity, underscoring the precariousness of their position on the frontier. In the same entry, he noted the fertility of the valley and its suitability for trade, perhaps envisioning a future where wagons and stock could traverse these lands more securely.

Clark’s journey continued down the Yellowstone River, a corridor carved over eons from volcanic rock and glacial alluvium. By August 3, 1806, he reached the confluence with the Missouri River, the great artery of the northern plains. Here he awaited the return of Meriwether Lewis, who arrived on August 12 after an arduous trek. Lewis bore a bullet wound to his left thigh, sustained in a hunting accident near the Marias River country. The injury, though serious, did not deter the expedition’s leaders from their duty to chart the vast western territories newly acquired through the Louisiana Purchase.

Reflecting on the expedition’s final stages, Lewis remarked in a letter to President Thomas Jefferson, "The country through which we passed is in many places the finest that I ever beheld. The rivers abound with fish, the plains with buffaloe [sic], and the mountains with game." Such observations reveal the intricate balance between human endeavor and the natural world, a balance evident at the Clarks Fork mouth where commerce and wilderness met in uneasy alliance.

The landscape around Laurel today still bears the marks of its geological past. The Yellowstone River has continued to sculpt its channel, cutting through Pleistocene-age alluvium deposited during the last Ice Age. The nearby Beartooth Mountains, capped with Precambrian granites some 2.7 billion years old, rise sharply to the south, their glaciers feeding tributaries that join the Clarks Fork. This hydrological network, observed and recorded by Clark, remains vital to the region’s ecology.

Clark’s designation of this location as an ideal commerce site was no idle claim. The confluence of waterways provided access to trade routes used by the Crow and other indigenous peoples long before European contact. The fertile floodplains supported abundant wildlife, and the river’s navigability allowed movement of goods and people. In the decades following the expedition, these natural advantages contributed to the establishment of settlements, trading posts, and eventually towns like Laurel.

The historic marker erected by the Laurel Chamber of Commerce captures this moment in time, but the land itself offers a deeper narrative--one of geological force, ecological richness, and human determination. Standing where Clark once camped, amid the cottonwoods and the shifting river, one gains a sense of the vast temporal scales at play. The rocks beneath the feet have witnessed volcanic eruptions, glacial advances, and the passage of countless generations of plants, animals, and people.

Clark’s map entry and journal notes provide a tangible link to the early 19th century, a snapshot of a landscape on the cusp of transformation. His words convey a practical appreciation for the land’s potential, grounded in direct observation rather than romanticism. "The country is good," he wrote simply, "and will make good settlements."

In this place where the Yellowstone and Clarks Fork meet, the story of western expansion begins in earnest--a story written not only in ink on parchment but etched in stone and water, in the quiet persistence of cottonwoods, and in the restless flow of the river.

See also

• Lewis and Clark Expedition July 24, 1806 at Laurel, Yellowstone County
• Lewis and Clark Yellowstone River Journey at Billings, Yellowstone County