The annual Sergeant Floyd Memorial encampment is this weekend along the banks of the Missouri River in Sioux City.
Sergeant Charles Floyd was the only member of the 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition to die. Sioux City Public Museum director Steve Hansen says re-enactors will show the public what expedition members did on their way to the Pacific Ocean. “They look forward to it and do a very nice job of educating the public on period of times you know back in the 1800s on how Lewis and Clark came up in with the had for tools, and how they ate,” he says. “Usually there’s a blacksmith down there a rope maker”
Those presentations are happening Saturday and Sunday. There will be a re-enactment of the burial of Sergeant Floyd Saturday at the monument that bears his name. “A lot of people don’t know that the Sergeant Floyd Memorial Monument is a nationally recognized historic monument also. So, just a good weekend for history and I say a good weekend for families to come together and have fun down at the riverfront,” Hansen says.
The encampments on the river take place from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday, and from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Sunday.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)