Interpreting the Lewis and Clark Trail
A thirteen year project is completed
A thirteen year project is completed
These signs in West Bank Park were just installed marking the completion of the sign inventory and update project. These are the second set of new signs installed at West Bank; the first ones fell victim to vandals.
In the years leading up to the Lewis and Clark Expedition Bicentennial, the Portage Route Chapter, the local group of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, was busy developing locations and placing interpretive signage along the Expedition’s trail through the central part of Montana. The Portage Chapter worked with several partners as 36 locations were developed with 100 signs.
Local governments and private groups, state Fish Wildlife and Parks, state Highway Department, regional and national corporations, local private business and federal agencies all aided in funding, designing and installing signs and building trails and pullouts off the highways so the touring public could see the fruits of their labor. But all this development was not always well co-ordinated.
In October of 2007, when the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial was over, the Portage Route Chapter wanted to inventory all the interpretive locations to update the inventory that the National Park Service maintained. The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail is administered by the National Park Service. We wanted to know where they were and what they were interpreting, along with who owned them and who would be responsible for maintaining them in future years.
As the project developed, the more we worked the more we found needed to be done. The expedition member name plaques that surrounded the base of the Explorers at the Portage statue in the Great Falls Overlook Park were made of slate and several were broken out; others were showing wear. We found that the cost of replacing them was prohibitive since our original sources were gone. We had no way to match the replacement plaques with the original ones. We finally agreed to bite the bullet and replace all of the name plaques by building two walls and mounting the name plaques on them (see photo below).
We eventually were able to locate and photograph all the locations in our interest area that had interpretive signage. Our area was a triangle approximately 100 miles for each leg starting at Loma—mouth of the Marias River—then northwest to Browning—Camp Disappointment—and turning southwest through Lewis and Clark Pass and on to Wolf Creek Canyon. The final leg follows the Missouri River back down to Loma.
As we worked to develop our update list, we found a variety of problems that needed our attention. To fix what we found wanting we added signs, deleted signs and changed signs. We found duplicate signs, some vandalism, errors in text as well as wrong graphics for the location of the sign, a few signs were interpreting events in the wrong area, and signs that were worn out and hard to read. By the time we were done we spent $31,000 and made 30 new signs.
The photos below give a flavor for what the project accomplished.
