Lewis & Clark

Beaverhead Rock

Notes from the Artist:

The Expedition of Western Exploration by Lewis and Clark introduced a smaller United States to vast new lands and many native nations, diverse in lifestyle and culture.

Most physical evidence of this trek has long since disapeared. The important remains are the journals kept by the expedition members. This is the where we can make a magical connection; to find the landmarks the explorers described and then stand in their footprints.

Beaverhead Rock is one of these easily recognized, vividly described physical features. The comments of Sacajawea tell us that this outcropping was an important milemarker to the Shoshones.

I had admired this spot between Dillon and Twin Bridges with its stage stop made of logs. Later, when I read more of Montana history, I developed an even greater appreciation of its role. The Vigilantes of Montana found shelter from a blizzard one night beside Beaverhead’s rocky flanks while on the hunt for outlaws, the scourge of Bannack and Virginia City in 1863.

  hand colored etching by Barbara Coppock              Return to Map...

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