Lewis and Clark Trail-Travois Road

The Lewis and Clark Trail–Travois Road is a 5-acre (2.0 ha) historic site located 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Pomeroy, Washington, on U.S. Route 12 (US 12). It is a surviving stretch of Indian travois trail followed by Lewis and Clark in their 1805–06 expedition and mentioned in their writings. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.[1][2]

Lewis and Clark Trail–Travois Road
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Trail in the foreground
Lewis and Clark Trail-Travois Road Show map of Washington (state) Lewis and Clark Trail-Travois Road Show map of the United States
Location	5 miles (8.0 km) east of Pomeroy on US 12
Nearest city	Pomeroy, Washington
Coordinates	46°27′51.4″N 117°28′46.06″W
Area	5 acres (2.0 ha)
NRHP reference No.	74001952[1]
Added to NRHP	January 11, 1974

The site is significant for the 1805–06 event, for including "a trail that was very important in aboriginal times", and for its information potential.[2] It seems to have been described by Meriwether Lewis, who wrote on May 3, 1806: "...we Continued Still up the Creek bottoms ... to the place at which the roade leaves the [Pataha] Creek and assends the hill up to the high plains: here we Encamped in a Small grove of Cotton trees...".[3]

Travois were used by American Indians to transport possessions by means of two long poles slung with a hammock trailing behind a horse or dog. The deep, parallel tracks caused by the dragging poles are still visible today in a quarter-mile (0.4 km) section of the original trail, sometimes called the Nez Perce Trail, followed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and preserved at this site.[3]