French Traders Memorial Plaques

French Traders Memorial Plaques

LOCATION:
W. 8th St. & Jefferson St., Kansas City, MO

Created By: The Chouteau Society

This marker overlooks the actual route of Captains Lewis & Clark, their troops, and their French boatmen. guides, hunters and interpreters (whose families had been going up the Missouri River for over 100 years before 1804). The Verendryes, traveling overland, had reached the vicinity of the headwaters of the Missouri in 1742. The Mid-western French-speaking community greatly facilitated the Voyage of Discovery by providing skilled personnel, supplies, boats, and maps. Sacagawea’s papoose, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, lived for a time in KC as a youth, on the west bank of the Missouri, within sight of this marker. Notice the magnificent Lewis & Clark statuary grouping in the center of the Clark Point circle.