Missouri Headwaters State Park

By Rich Aarstad, Montana Historical Society Lewis and Clark Historian

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Captain William Clark—July 25, 1805

            A fine morning   we proceed on a fiew miles to the three forks of the Missouri   those three forks are nearly of a Size, the North fork appears to have the most water and must be Considered as the one best calculated for us to assend

 

Captain Meriwether Lewis—July 28, 1805

            Both Capt. C. and myself corrisponded in opinion with rispect to the impropriety of calling either of these streams the Missouri and accordingly agreed to name them after the President of the United States and the Secretaries of the Treasury and state . . ..   In pursuance of this resolution we called the S.W. fork, that which we meant to ascend, Jefferson’s River in honor of that illustrious personage Thomas Jefferson.    the middle fork we called Madison’s River in honor of James Madison, and the S.E. Fork we called Gallitin’s River in honor of Albert Gallitin.

 

Two entries describing the same geographic location but each flavored by the measure of the men who wrote them, Clark’s straightforward, business like, Lewis assuming the mantel of proprietary nationalism, planting the flag.   One hundred and ninety-seven years later the headwaters of the Missouri is one of Montana’s State Parks and a national historic landmark.   A Lewis and Clark historical site that draws hundreds each year to stand at the confluence of the Madison and the Jefferson or the top of Fort Rock and marvel at this singular place that marks the beginning of the Missouri.

            Recently my wife and I stood back in respectful silence at the confluence site as another couple descended the bank and waded out into the waters of the Madison and the Jefferson and gazed upstream.   When they came out of the water we passed each other on the trail and I asked how the water was.   The gentleman responded quickly, “It’s great.   You can’t say you’ve been to the headwaters of the Missouri unless you’ve stood in it.”   A pilgrim in search of the past, at peace with the destination, eyes lit by the fires of the imagination.   It was an intimate moment shared by strangers drawn to experience a sense of the past.  

            Missouri Headwaters State Park has much to offer anyone interested in history or anybody who is willing to stop and allow the natural beauty of the park to seep under their skins.

  The Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, arrived on terrain that looked much the same with a few notable exceptions—the highway between Three Forks and Trident and Interstate 90.   But even these modern roads follow trails of Indians who traversed the region on their annual travels to the buffalo hunting grounds.  

            When you visit the park open yourself to the mystique of the confluence area.   It is a road from the past that carries on into the future generations who will stand where the Missouri River begins and marvel at how human history is woven into the landscapes that have shaped it.