Subj: This goes after the Oct 17th story line
Date: 3/21/00 4:43:27 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: DPOCTALC1
To: Tomactor

Local History:
When the Corps of Discovery camped for two days at the mouth of the Snake River, Captain Clark became the first white man known to explore the Kennewick area. Unless, of course, the now famous "Kennewick Man" was white and not Native American! The Yakama Indians called this the "grassy place surrounded with water" and used it as their winter campground because of the mild climate. It was known as a winter paradise. On October 17th, Clark with two men canoed up the Columbia River a few miles to an island (possibly Clover Island) where the Indians drew a map showing the Yakima River and local Indian villages. Although Clark never explored the Yakima River as a result of the impending darkness due to a late departing time of 2 o'clock that afternoon, he did see and note the rivers mouth and it can be said that Clover Island is as far north up the Columbia that the Corps explored. Columbia Point, on the north side of the mouth of Clark's River, was a major winter home for the local Indians. Clark advanced as far as the cable bridge where Clover Island is, at the end of Washington Street. A marker gives silent testimony to the historic events just as you pass under the bridge to the island. After the settlers came the Indians moved their camp site to near the end of the railroad bridge.

The first wagon train to arrive in this area was the Longmire group which left the Oregon Trail and built rafts of driftwood to cross the Columbia River from Wallula in 1853. "They continued north through present day Finely, Richland and Yakima and over the Naches Pass to Puget Sound. This route became known as the Old Emigrant Road and as Naches Road." In later years hay was shipped by freight wagons and by barges to Umatilla on the Oregon Trail, where pioneers used it to feed their weary livestock. It is also known that a Hudson Bay Company trail crossed the Hanford Reservation.

One last historical note: On July 9th, 1811, David Thompson of the North West Company camped at the same site that Lewis and Clark had in 1805. It was here that he erected a pole with the British flag and a note claiming this territory for Britain! Then on August 14, 1811, traders from John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company came to pay a visit. Little did the Indians realize that Manifest Destiny would soon bring strangers by the tens of thousands along the Oregon Trail. Slowly at first then as a flood in 1843. The Great Migration had begun.