Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Time: 7:30-8:30pm
Location: Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center | Executive Auditorium

The Lewis & Clark Heritage Trail” is part of the nationwide effort to educate Americans about the importance of the Lewis and Clark expedition in U.S. history.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition from August 31, 1803, to September 25, 1806, was the exploration across the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The group consisted of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. The expedition made its way westward, and crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas before reaching the Pacific Coast.

President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to explore and to map the newly acquired territory, to find a practical route across the western half of the continent, and to establish an American presence in this territory before European powers attempted to establish claims in the region. The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and to establish trade with local Native American tribes. The Virginia association emphasizes the stops that the group made on its way home, coming through Rogersville, King’s Landing (Kingsport), Goodson’s (Bristol), the John Preston house (outside Bristol), through Abingdon--then up the Valley of Virginia to Charlottesville.

Besides identifying the path of the expedition’s return through southwest Virginia, the Virginia Lewis & Clark Heritage Trail highlights various sites that are associated with Lewis and Clark, both Virginians, as well as sites associated with the eight other Virginians who were part of the expedition.