"A proposed Albemarle County interactive museum to commemorate the transcontinental trek of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark got a major financial boost Tuesday.

Fifth District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, presented board members of the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center of Virginia with a simulated check for $198,000 at a ceremony held in the barn at Darden Towe Park.

“I think it is a big plus to bringing tourism here,” Goode said of the proposed center.

Last year marked the bicentennial commemoration of the beginning of the Corps of Discovery’s famed trek across the continent, an enterprise launched at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson.

Events commemorating the trip will continue across the nation through 2006.

“This area already has significant tourism,” the congressman said, standing beside a 55-foot keelboat similar to the one the explorers and their Corps of Discovery used to navigate the Missouri River.

“This provides another site to keep visitors in the area for another day,” Goode said.

The federal economic development grant is the largest, single contribution the nonprofit organization has received, said Kay Slaughter, a board member and former Charlottesville mayor. The final cost of the center is estimated to be between $4 million and $6 million.

“We’ve gotten some grants for the boat-building activities,” Slaughter said. “This is a major source for us.”

A 2000 study commissioned by the city of Charlottesville said that a local tourist attraction commemorating the explorers’ trek could bring as many as 450,000 visitors and generate as much as $500,000 a year for the local economy.

The exploratory center, which would be built along the northern edge of the park between the banks of the Rivanna River and Route 20, is slated to feature a series of trails, outdoor exhibits and a 15,000-square-foot education center.

The plan calls for a replica of an expedition fort and two separate sites for Indian villages, which would explain the history of both eastern and western tribes that the group encountered on their trip.

Slaughter said the group has submitted a site plan to Albemarle’s planning department and plans to hold a meeting with nearby residents April 1 to discuss the project.

The site, which the county and city leased to the nonprofit for a nominal fee, already has been bustling with activity since the organization got its start in 2000.

Within months, hundreds of schoolchildren and adults began constructing a keelboat, which the center plans to launch on the Rivanna River this fall.

Board member Francis McQ. Lawrence, a local lawyer who has helped build the craft, said the nonprofit’s hope is that the launch will coincide with the U.S. Mint’s plans to issue nickels with Lewis and Clark on a keelboat." (David Dadurka, The Daily Progress, March 17, 2004)

Contact David Dadurka at (434) 978-7299 or ddadurka@dailyprogress.com.