Started in 1996 as a brainchild of a few citizens, the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center of Virginia is a tax-exempt nonprofit educational organization that has sponsored three Lewis and Clark Festivals, participated in the national kick-off of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, built an historic keelboat as part of an educational boat-building outreach program to local schoolchildren, secured 18 acres in a regional public park as well as a private trail easement to site its facility, and retained the services of an internationally renowned team of architects and land planners to design the Center’s facility.

The original feasibility study, funded by Charlottesville City, concluded that:

• The Center could become a premier visitor site and could capture a share of tourists who are already visiting major attractions such as Monticello and the University of Virginia. 
  
  
• The Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center could occupy a role for the increasing national interest in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The feasibility study examined two types of locations for the Center - urban or park settings; the study assumed that the land will be leased or donated by an institutional or governmental sponsor or donated as part of a public/private partnership development. The Center has selected a park setting that includes a portion of a regional park as well as land formally owned by the Clark family.

Museum of Westward Expansion, St Louis, Mo.

The Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center of Virginia is a nonprofit tax-exempt charitable organization.  The Lewis and Clark Center sponsors an annual Lewis and Clark festival and currently sponsors a community keelboat building project.

The Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors have been supportive of the project and members of these bodies serve on the Board of Directors.

	One of the outstanding museums that the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center studied to develop its center concept.

Elizabeth Gleason, former member of Charlottesville City Council and a current member of the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center of Virginia, talked about local connections to the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Center's plans at a meeting of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

LEWIS AND CLARK EXPLORATORY CENTER OF VIRGINIA, INC.
From a Speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution, February 2002