Today I bicycled across the Ohio River to Indiana where the Falls of the Ohio national park is located.
The statue is of Meriwether Lewis (R) and William Clark, the commanders of the Lewis and Clark expedition that set out in 1803 from what became Louisville to explore the American West between Kentucky and the Pacific Ocean. Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president, sent them out.
Riverboats coming down the Ohio from the new northeastern American colonies could only travel as far south as the falls of the Ohio River, not a dramatic waterfall but a drop of about twenty-five feet over these now exposed shoals loaded with fossil remains. Today Lock and Dam 41 enables river traffic to be routed around the falls. The concrete wall in the rear creates a channel by the island in the background which provides access to the locks. Lewis and Clark left here in 1803 and returned in 1806 after an epic journey.
