Lewis & Clark Pavilion and Atchison Historical Marker

On July 4, 1804, Lewis and Clark, exploring the new Louisiana Purchase, camped near this site. Fifty years later the town was founded by Pro-slavery men and named for Sen. D. R. Atchison. The Squatter Sovereign, Atchison’s first newspaper, was an early advocate of violence against abolition. It was here that Pardee Butler, a Free- State preacher, was set adrift on a river raft and on his return was tarred and feathered. It was also here that Abraham Lincoln in 1859 “auditioned” his famous Cooper Union address ~ unmentioned by local newspapers. During the heyday of river steamboating in the 1850’s Atchison became an outfitting depot for emigrant and freighting trains to Utah and the Pacific Coast, a supply base for the Pike’s Peak gold rush, and in the early 1850’s a starting point for the Pony Express and the Overland Stage lines. In this pioneer center of transportation the Santa Fe railway was organized in 1860, modestly named the Atchison & Topeka.

The Lewis & Clark Pavilion in Riverfront Park was constructed in preparation for the Lewis and Clark bicentennial commemoration on July 3-4, 2004. The pavilion, built by the Kansas Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commission, has interpretive panels with information on the Lewis & Clark expedition, the Missouri River and the Kanza Nation.