Following is a excerpt from Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, the definitive book on one of the most momentous expeditions in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. (Simon & Schuster, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, l996)

"Built on a bluff above the flood plain, St. Louis when Lewis arrived was four decades old, with a population of a little over a thousand, mainly French Canadians. For so young and so small a town, St. Louis had a critical role to play in a vast empire. It was the center of the fur trade for the huge region drained by the Missouri. Most of the trade goods came from across the ocean, then crossed the continent to reach St. Louis. From that central point, the goods fanned out via individual traders to the farthest reaches of the frontier. And the pirogues and keelboats that carried the trade goods to the Indians brought back stacks and stacks of beautiful furs that brought king's ransoms in Europe.

Matt Bales uses some elbow grease to smooth a century-old Soulard door, which will enjoy continued service in a Lami Street apartment owned by Dave Lewis. The wood used in construction of Soulard homes was growing in the centuries before the settlement of St. Louis. (People Productions photo by Clark Rowley)

"Business opportunities abounded, in short, and continued to expand, because of the American pioneers slipping across to the Spanish side and making farms on the pieces of ground they had cleared. When the formal transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France and then to the United States took place, expected sometime in the coming spring, Americans would be rushing into the Missouri country. They would need outfitting.

"As if things weren't good enough for the St. Louis merchants, here came Meriwether Lewis, with only enough supplies in hand for a party of fifteen, instead of the amounts needed for a party of forty-five, and armed with an authorization from the president to buy whatever he might need and charge it to the army. The merchants of the day had suddenly become the first military contractors in St. Louis.

"In addition to supplies, Lewis was going to need men, voyagers with strong backs who could paddle the pirogues up the Missouri to the Mandan villages. He would be spending a lot of time in the town, haggling with merchants, sizing up volunteers. Before Lewis left Washington, Jefferson had given him oral instructions to gather as much statistical information as possible on Upper Louisiana, which meant another job to do in St. Louis.

"At the time he arrived in St. Louis, Lewis had not yet received Jefferson's direct orders to abandon his risky plan to ride to Sante Fe during the winter months, but he had put the foolish thought out of his mind anyway. His problem was going to be finding enough time to do all that needed to be done, not how to pass time.

At his Soulard Market stand Allen Hagemann shows off products of his green thumb and his greenhouses and fields, located in Imperial. Bedding plants and a spectrum of fresh produce are available in season at Soulard Market, a treat for urban residents.

"First came winter camp. On December 9, Lewis crossed to the Illinois side and met Clark and the party at Cahokia. He reported that the Spanish would not allow a movement up the Missouri, but Jarrot had a claim to a four-hundred-acre tract at the mouth of Wood River and suggested Lewis would find it a good place to build huts for the winter, to get started on modifying the keelboat for the long haul up the Missouri, and to select and train the men for the permanent party. Clark went on to the site to look it over.

"Lewis returned to St. Louis to get going on his tasks. He began by doing his research on Upper Louisiana. It was the first survey done by an American of any part of the Purchase. Lewis worked up a questionnaire, with such queries as the population, the number of immigrants from the United States into Louisiana, how much land had been granted to individuals, the value of the imports and exports to and from St. Louis, and so on. Then he set out to talk to the men in town who had some knowledge of the local and regional situation.

"He turned first to Antoine Soulard, surveyor general of Upper Louisiana for the Spanish government. Soulard, a Frenchman, told Lewis that the 1800 census recorded a population of about ten thousand in Upper Louisiana, two thousand of whom were slaves. About two-thirds of the whites were Americans. That was three years ago. In 1803 alone, it was estimated that another hundred American families had crossed over into Upper Louisiana. Scouts from North Carolina and elsewhere had come to look over the Missouri country, 'in serch of some eligible positions to form settlements as soon as the American government is in operation.'

"...When Lewis and Clark arrived on the Mississippi River, they were following the first American settlers in Missouri and were but a jump ahead of thousands of others who were thinking about or already on their way to Missouri. Napoleon had gotten it right: he might as well sell and get some money for the place, because the Americans were going to overrun it anyway.

"...Lewis also did research for his tour. Soulard gave him a map that traced the Missouri to the mouth of the Osage River..." (Pages 123, 124, 125.)