Free Republic

TWIN BUTTES, N.D. -- Soft, lyrical syllables come in rapids and eddies, like a stream that rushes and bends. Edwin Benson, 72, sits in his ranch kitchen and speaks the rippling words, telling the story of a crafty coyote who pretends to help a buffalo calf return to its herd. The coyote is persuasive, the buffalo calf naive. There is foreboding in Benson's tone, but humor, too. He tells the story in the language that two centuries ago welcomed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to the Mandan Indian villages by the Missouri River in western North Dakota, not far...

<p>On May 14, 1804, William Clark wrote in his journal that "under a jentle brease," the boats of the Corps of Discovery headed up the Missouri with "46 men, 4 horses and 1 dog."</p> <p>With the Lewis and Clark expedition's bicentennial, narratives and edited journals are flying off the presses. Much of what there is to tell has been told. At least two new books tell the tale of the voyage supposedly from the dog's point of view.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- For the first time ever, the U.S. Army will take its annual musical extravaganza, "Spirit of America," to Pittsburgh -- and tickets are free.</p> <p>Produced by the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, the "Spirit of America" -- a two-hour mixture of music, history and ceremonial military drills -- will be performed four times at Mellon Arena on Sept. 12-13.</p>

fresh perspective on the aftermath of the Lewis & Clark Expedition On the first day of May 1839 a group of 16 armed and mounted men rode up to the courthouse in the town square of Peoria, Illinois, bowed their heads, pledged themselves never to desert one another, turned and rode west to the cheers of local citizens who had turned out to see them off. Their stated intent was to colonize the Oregon country on behalf of the United States and drive out the English fur trading companies operating there. Their organizer and elected captain was a Peoria...

PHILADELPHIA - Stories of Lewis and Clark usually start out west, where the explorers paddled up the Missouri River in 1804 to explore the Louisiana Purchase and find an easy water route to the Pacific Ocean. But it was 200 years ago that the tale really began - in Philadelphia. A few years after drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society, based in Philadelphia. Though he had never traveled more than 50 miles west of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Jefferson dreamed of a scientific exploration of the unmapped West. So when he...

Posted on Thu, Apr. 24, 2003 Nickel Makeover to Commemorate 2 Events REBECCA CARROLL Associated Press WASHINGTON -The nickel is getting a makeover. The back side of the new 5-cent coin will commemorate the bicentennial of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark expedition. The U.S. Mint hopes to issue the nickels late this year or in early 2004. In 2006, nickels will return to a depiction of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, although the image will not necessarily replicate the version on today's coin. Lawmakers from Virginia pushed for and received assurance that the coin design...

The U.S. Mint almost booted Monticello off the nickel this week — until Virginia's delegation to the House of Representatives, led by Republican Eric Cantor, introduced legislation to stop it. That's the story Cantor's office is spreading, though the Mint says the whole thing is just a big misunderstanding. What's clear, however, is that the Mint doesn't want next year's nickels looking like the ones now jingling in your pocket. The Mint would like to redesign all of America's coins. Its ongoing 50 State Quarters program has been a popular success. As a celebration of federalism, too, it's something conservatives...

<p>Two hundred years ago, right about now, a 29-year-old Virginian named Meriwether Lewis was buying supplies for what was about to become America's most famous camping trip. Among other things on a very long list, Lewis was stocking up on gunpowder, fishhooks, tobacco, whiskey, trade beads (he went heavy on blue ones), mosquito netting, packets of powdered ink, flannel for clothing and nearly 200 pounds of something called "Portable-Soup" -- one of the first commercially dried foods the country had seen. William Clark wasn't yet part of the deal. The men knew each other -- Lewis had served under Clark's command in the U.S. Army -- but they weren't close friends. They would be soon enough, though, when they and the companions they called the Corps of Discovery stepped into the pages of history in May 1804.</p>

Lewis, Clark become Internet explorers Program changes the landscape of education on pairs' journey 09/22/2002 Associated Press COLUMBIA, Mo. Click on your computer, and the Missouri River circa 1804 rolls away into the western horizon, framed by rock formations, Indian landmarks and dense woods - just as Lewis and Clark saw it during their storied explorations two centuries ago. As if viewed from a helicopter hovering over the Corps of Discovery's vessels, the untamed river curves around islands, stretches into marshes and sloughs, changes colors to match the clouds and sunshine recorded in meticulous diaries. History is coming alive...

WASHINGTON - The golden Sacagawea dollar coin was supposed to be jingling in pockets across the country by now. Instead, the U.S. Mint is cutting back on production because people just aren't interested. For now, the Mint won't make any more new dollar coins for banks, retailers and others to use to make change. But it will produce some coins for collectors. Since their much ballyhooed debut just more than two years ago, the golden-colored dollar coins have struggled to catch on and become a staple in cash registers, change purses and pockets. But the sour U.S. economy, which ended...

For a quarter, the U.S. Mint has bought itself some ill will in Missouri.Five designs Missouri submitted for consideration to grace the state quarter have been redrawn by a mint artist.Radical changes to two of the designs have prompted protests by the artists who created them.To them, the new designs aren't worth a cent, let alone a quarter."I was just like, `Wow,' they really changed it a lot," said Barton Burnell, an Independence resident whose design featured an American Indian on horseback on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and a pioneer's wagon far below him.The redrawn design removes...

<p>SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) --  Many of the plants and animals first reported nearly 200 years ago by the Lewis and Clark expedition are on the decline in the West, the Sierra Club contended Thursday.</p> <p>Of the 122 animals discovered by Lewis and Clark, at least 40 percent are under a designation warranting concern and protection, the Sierra Club said in a new report.</p>