Sergeant Floyd Monument

The tall sandstone obelisk on the bluff above Sioux City marks the grave of Sergeant Charles Floyd, the only member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to die on the journey. He was twenty-two years old when he collapsed in late August of eighteen oh four, most likely from a ruptured appendix, and the Corps buried him here with full military honors. Captain Lewis wrote that Floyd died with great composure, a good soldier to the last.

The monument was dedicated in nineteen oh one and was designated in nineteen sixty as the first National Historic Landmark in the country. A one-hundred-foot shaft now stands as both a grave marker and a tribute to an expedition that mapped half a continent.