What did Lewis & Clark really look like as they trekked west?
There’s no better place to find out than the Sioux City Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, according to Chris Wilson, vice president of Split Rock Studio, St. Paul, Minn., the firm that designed and built the interpretive center exhibits. Split Rock has designed and constructed hundreds of interpretive exhibits on varying topics across the nation.
“Nobody has ever seen Lewis & Clark like this before,” says Wilson. “Everybody who worked on the Sioux City project went to extraordinary lengths to correct misconceptions about the explorers.”
Most Americans have been influenced by movies that portray the explorers as Daniel Boone types who wore coonskin hats and buckskin britches. But the interpretive center’s murals and animatronic mannequins tell a much different story. They depict a military operation with privates, sergeants and two captains who wore uniforms and adhered to military code. Certain occasions, such as meetings with Indian tribes and the burial of Sergeant Charles Floyd, called for full dress uniform. Split Rock artists received expert advice on how to make the uniforms and all details portrayed in the center as accurate as possible.
“The focus of this exhibit is the funeral of Floyd. But it’s also to show that this was a military expedition and not a bunch of mountain men going on a camping trip,” says Wilson. “The expedition was operated by the government, for the government. Lewis and Clark were Army officers.”
Stephen Allie, curator of the Frontier Army Museum at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., served as the center’s military uniform advisor. His expertise helped Split Rock artists create images of soldiers in uniforms that now appear unbelievably uncomfortable for August in the Sioux City area. Both the murals and animatronic mannequins show Lewis & Clark dressed in layers of heavy formal clothing for Floyd’s funeral. They wear fine British wool coats, high leather boots and white leather gloves.
“Because of the way most of us have seen Lewis and Clark portrayed, it’s surprising to now see them so fully and formally dressed. But this was the military and they were in uniforms every day,” says Blaine Haunsperger, a Split Rock artist who was a member of the team that spent about one year creating the hand-painted murals. “You can see the French influence in the uniforms. They look almost Napoleonic.”
It’s not only uniforms and other garments that are depicted with the greatest historical accuracy possible. The murals tell dozens of stories about the Corps of Discovery’s time in the Sioux City area. The explorers are seen in a variety of activities, from hunting and cooking to surveying the land and tending the keelboat. Among the most sobering images is the burial of Floyd. Among the most whimsical is a prairie dog – one of the animals that fascinated the explorers so much that they sent a live one back to President Thomas Jefferson. “We wanted to show that they were busy every day. We also wanted to show the beauty that they saw when they came here. The Sioux City area was virgin prairie. In their journals they talk over and over about how handsome it was,” says Haunsperger.
The Missouri River is the central image in the mural’s depiction of the Sioux City area. Visitors see a wide, untamed river much different from what they see today. One scene shows the expedition camped at what is now Dakota City, Neb., looking east across the Missouri to Loess Hills and lush prairie. Another scene shows buffalo roaming the Nebraska prairie.
The murals render the explorers as life-sized figures – most about 6 feet tall. They bring to life not only the well-known members of the expedition, but also the formerly faceless members, such as boatmen and hunters. “We had historians advising us on everything,” says Haunsperger. “I have piles of comments from them. We made many changes as a result of their comments to make sure we got everything right.”
Creating the murals was a painstaking process. It began as part of the total design for the interpretive center. Unlike projects that must be worked into an existing building, this interpretive center allowed Split Roc
k’s ideas to influence the center’s design. “That was a huge advantage,” says Wilson.
The exhibit designer worked with MRHD and architects at Ruble Mamura Moss Brygger. The collaboration led to the concept of five exhibit spaces brought together with one larger, circular exhibit space. Hand-painted murals serve as essential parts of each space. They form the background, set the mood and serve up dozens of details about the expedition and what the Sioux City area looked like 200 years ago.
The muralist’s work began with pencil sketches based on the best historical research available and input from MRHD. After the sketches were approved, the artist did color sketches to scale. After more consultation with advisors and MRHD, the sk
etches were blown up by hand and painted on canvas.
“We stretched canvas in our shop and used acrylic paint,” says Haunsperger. “Then we rolled up the finished canvases, brought them here and applied them to the walls like wallpaper.”
Some visitors may first mistake the murals for wallpaper. But Wilson assures them that the work is entirely hand done and exclusive to Sioux City’s interpretive center. “You will not find this anywhere else in the country.”
