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Where: Lewis and Clark center, 102 S. 67th Road, Nebraska City (41 miles southeast of Omaha)
Admission: $5.50, adults; $4.50, senior citizens and college students; $3.50, children ages 6 to 18; children age 5 and younger, free
Information: (402) 874-9900
Web site: www.mrb-lewisandclarkcenter.org
The Lewis and Clark center in Nebraska City will hold its annual salute to America's best-known trailblazers this weekend, but now visitors will have to pay to hear about their heroics.
On June 15, the National Park Service transferred administration of the five-year-old center to a local foundation. Under the Park Service, donations were accepted but admission was not charged.
On June 30, the center began charging: $5.50 for adults, $4.50 for senior citizens and college students, and $3.50 for children ages 6 to 18. Children 5 and under are admitted free.
An admission charge was needed to operate the Missouri River Basin Lewis & Clark Interpretive Trail and Visitors Center at 102 S. 67th Road, said Executive Director Erv Friesen.
“We have to be able to run the place now that the Park Service has turned it over to us,” Friesen said. “We pay for utilities, the staff payroll, the grounds upkeep and new exhibits.”
Friesen said the money to build the center came from local donations. The National Park Service was asked to use its expertise to oversee the construction of the center and get it running.
“The idea all along was to eventually turn (the center) over to the local foundation,” Friesen said. “We will have a ceremony in September to commemorate the transfer.”
In the meantime, speakers have been lined up for Saturday and Sunday to mark the 205th anniversary of the Corps of Discovery. The Lewis and Clark expedition, which Meriwether Lewis and William Clark headed from 1803 to 1806, was the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back to St. Louis.
Activities this weekend will begin each day at 7 a.m. and end about 4 p.m. Expedition re-enactors will be throughout the grounds, demonstrating some of the skills needed to tan hides, chink logs for shelters and cook food.
Speakers will include a noted scholar of the expedition, Gary E. Moulton of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who will speak Saturday at 11 a.m.
Moulton is a professor of history emeritus at UNL and editor of the 13 volumes of “Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.”
Truman Black, an Otoe Tribe member living in Red Rock, Okla., will talk about the expedition's impact on Native Americans. Black will talk about the Otoes' historic first meetings with expedition members.
Contact the writer:
444-1272, kevin.cole@owh.com
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