Visitors Center
The Lewis and Clark Visitor Center opened December 12, 2002. This 15,000 square foot brick and cedar structure highlights the Lewis and Clark experience in Illinois with a theater production "At Journey's Edge", four exhibit halls, gift shop, restrooms, conference room, multi-purpose room, and administrative offices. The site also provides a day-use area, a wet and dry prairie and a maintenance building to serve the site.
The
Visitor Center connects visitors with that part of the story that can be most
powerfully told from this place-the launching point of the expedition. The
Center commemorates and interprets the site and provides a setting in which
all visitors can explore the competing vision of America conjured up by the
Corps' epic journey. The center has curved walls, colors associated with the
rivers, and show how the corps assembled equipment, supplies and men as they
made their way to the Illinois camp. The theatre production highlights camp
life and preparing the Keel boat by showing the camp under construction, local
visitors, the lifestyle of the men preparing for the journey, taking inventory
of the supplies, designing the storage of supplies, moving the boats upriver,
securing the boats and native relations.
It has been predicted that 400,000 visitors will visit the Lewis and Clark Visitors Center annually. The Confluence Biketrail will provide direct access to the site. The New York Times estimates that 31 million people will travel to a Lewis and Clark site during the Bicentennial.
