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Lewis and Clark visited here, "the Heart of the Rockies," on their expedition
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Senate Ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty
October 20, 1803
Faced with a shortage of cash, a recent military defeat, and the threat of a war with Great Britain and the United States over the territory in question, Napoleon decided to cut his losses. U.S. minister to France Robert Livingston, and James Monroe made the arrangements for the purchase. The land stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Twelve days after the signing of the treaty, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out to explore and map the new area. Settlers, who had had been pushing westward since the United States' victory in the Revolutionary War, would now have a vast new expanse of land to homestead.
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