• Fort Walla Walla Museum (map)
  • 755 Northeast Myra Road
  • Walla Walla, WA, 99362
  • United States

Fort Walla Walla Museum will host an exhibit designed to help Americans understand how information-gathering and mapping by the 1803-06 Lewis and Clark Expedition created a new portrait of our country that led to the nation’s western expansion.

“Reimagining America: The Maps of Lewis and Clark” will be open to the public at Fort Walla Walla Museum from December 15 through January 22 (our winter hours are 10am-4pm daily).

The exhibit explains how the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s findings transformed Euro-American understandings of North America in the early 1800s. It also investigates methods used by the explorers to gather and process that information, including preexisting maps, navigational scientific equipment that was considered cutting edge for its time, and intelligence gained from Native Americans whom the explorers interacted with.

“Reimagining America” was created by the national nonprofit Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation to increase awareness of the story of the nation’s geographic understanding of itself and the different cultural viewpoints and strategies that enabled Lewis and Clark to map and share their data. Fort Walla Walla Museum is one of many destinations for this fascinating traveling exhibit.

Consisting of 16 panels, each seven feet tall and three feet wide, extending 60 feet, the exhibit focuses on:

· The maps of Lewis and Clark. In 1803, Native people knew the West, but Americans could only speculate.

· The Race to Map the West. British cartographers had drawn ahead, and America needed to catch up. Thomas Jefferson had an answer.

· How Did They Find Their Way? Lewis and Clark started by collecting information from people who had been there before.

· Making Maps the Native Way. Native cartographic traditions reveal an older geography.       

· Making Maps the Scientific Way: Astronomical Observation. They measured the stars with precision instruments.

· Making Maps the Practical Way: Dead Reckoning. Low-tech methods filled in the details.

· Revising the Continent. Their maps changed the future of America.