Pompeys Pillar, MT

A Record of Exploration

Inside a glass case monitored by a video surveillance camera is one of the most famous signatures in the American West, but it’s not displayed in any museum.

Famed explorer William Clark painstakingly carved his signature and the date near the top of a sandstone outcrop called Pompeys Pillar, a two-acre mesa rising sharply out of the rolling plains of southeast Montana. Clark and Meriwether Lewis, traveling separately, were homeward bound after their expedition across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, when Clark climbed a 150-foot sandstone outcrop overlooking the Yellowstone River. He called the outcrop “a remarkable rock” in a journal entry after he scaled the large loaf of sandstone on July 25, 1806.

“This rock I ascended and from it’s top had a most extensive view in every direction of the Northerly side of the river high romantic Clifts approach & jut over the water for Some distance both above and below… I marked my name and the day and month and year,’’ Clark wrote.

The explorer’s carved signature and the date—now ensconced in a glass case—are the only written evidence of the expedition left along the route of its two-year, four-month, and 10-day Corps of Discovery journey. The trip ignited America’s curiousity about the West following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase (which included the pillar).

Ira Juhl, 77, who first saw the signature at 17, has volunteered at the site for the last 10 years as a member of the Pompeys Pillar Historical Association. Juhl says he’s always been a history buff, so preserving the site and making it accessible to the public means a lot to him.

“The signature is really the thing that focuses the history there,” he says.

The pillar is named for the son of Lewis and Clark’s American-Indian scout Sacagawea, whose nickname, Pompy, means “little chief” in Shoshoni. The name was changed from Pompy’s Tower to Pompeys Pillar in an 1814 account of the expedition published by Nicolas Biddle.

The landmark was designated a national monument last May, and Clark’s signature will help it stand out during the 2003-2006 celebration of the 200th anniversary of the expedition, when millions are expected to visit landmarks along the route. Pompeys Pillar includes not only Clark’s signature but also those of many other fur trappers, pioneers, and others—along with American-Indian petroglyphs.

The town of the same name is snuggled in a cottonwood grove just three miles east of the monument. Pompeys Pillar (pop. 60) is a quiet agricultural town and bedroom community for Billings.

Leo Miller, who runs the Lewis and Clark Tavern, acts as Pompeys Pillar’s historian, mayor, and the Chamber of Commerce. Although many sites along the explorers’ route are preparing for an influx of tourists, Miller doesn’t expect a boom locally.

Travelers may stop by his tavern out of curiosity, Miller says. Mostly, local residents gather there for chitchat, jokes, to pick up a newspaper, or to comment on the latest stories making headlines. Youngsters pedal up on bikes for a soda pop and bag of chips, the tavern’s screen door banging closed behind them. Ranchers stop to cash a check and slake their thirst.

When the winter cold slows the area’s agricultural life, Miller’s tavern draws out hibernating residents with a pool league for area billiard players. Money raised from the league funds an annual summer barbecue and street dance.

Tim Oblander, who grew up on a nearby farm, loves that kind of community life. He commutes to Billings to his job at a silversmith company so he can raise his family in Pompeys Pillar.

“You can’t take me out of the country, I guess,” says Oblander—who, unlike Clark, has decided to stay.

Brett French is a writer for The Billings Gazette newspaper.

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