Quick Facts
Location:
Virginia Point Park
Significance:
Meriwether Lewis traveled this stretch of the Ohio River on his journey west in 1803.
Designation:
Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
MANAGED BY:
Virginia Point Park, managed by the City of Kenova, WV. At the confluence of the Big Sandy and Ohio Rivers. Point where West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio meet.
Amenities
8 listed
Boat Ramp, Information Kiosk/Bulletin Board, Parking - Auto, Parking - Boat Trailer, Parking - Bus/RV, Picnic Shelter/Pavilion, Primitive Campsites, Toilet - Vault/Composting
Lewis and Clark NHT Visitor Centers and Museums
Visitor Centers and Museums along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
In 1803, Meriwether Lewis paid a guide to get the boats and crew from Pittsburgh to the Falls of the Ohio River.
The Ohio River was a busy highway. Indigenous residents of the valley, including Delaware, Shawnee, Haudenosaunee, and other people who had come to the valley as refugees lived in the Ohio River Valley in the late 1700s. Shawnee communities were known for accepting refugees from other Indigenous communities and their careful diplomacy helped foster pan-Indigenous confederacies out of the valley in the late 1700s.
French traders frequented the Ohio in the seventeenth century, and by the early 1800s, many people in the valley had mixed Indigenous-French heritage.
Following the American Revolution, a huge influx of White, American settlers came to the region, thanks to state and federal policies promoting settlement on lands violently seized from Indigenous people. Thousands of American settlers took roads through Kentucky or floated down the Ohio on flatboats to claim these lands. Lewis passed several American settlements in 1803, and at one point, bought corn and potatoes from an American farmer.
The water was low, which delayed their journey. To keep moving, they rowed, used poles to push the boat downstream, and at one point, “cut a channel through the gravel with our spade and canoe paddles and then drag the boat through." These were all techniques that the many people who navigated the Ohio’s busy waters had likely used before.
Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail
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* lewis & clark national historic trail
* lewis and clark
* lewis and clark expedition
* lewis and clark national historic trail
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Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
