Sergeant Floyd Monument

Sergeant Charles Floyd was a young Kentuckian and a trusted member of the Corps of Discovery, the party Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led up the Missouri River beginning in 1804. In late August of that year, as the expedition made its way through what is now western Iowa, Floyd fell gravely ill, likely from a burst appendix, an ailment no one at the time could have treated.

He died on August 20, 1804, and the expedition buried him on a bluff above the river with military honors, naming the nearby stream Floyd's River in his memory. Over the long, dangerous journey to the Pacific coast and back, Floyd would be the only member of the Corps of Discovery to lose his life, a remarkable outcome for so hazardous an undertaking.

As the Missouri shifted its channel over the decades, Floyd's original grave was threatened with erosion, and his remains were reburied further from the river's edge more than once. In the 1890s and early 1900s, the people of Sioux City resolved to give him a fitting memorial, and they raised a tall sandstone obelisk on the bluff, dedicated in 1901.

The monument stands roughly a hundred feet tall, a slender stone spire modeled on the ancient Egyptian obelisk form, planted on the highest ground with the river spread out below. In 1960 it became the first place in the United States to be named a National Historic Landmark, a recognition of both the man it honors and the expedition that opened the West.

This stretch of the Missouri was homeland to Native nations long before the expedition passed through, among them peoples of the region whose villages and trade routes lined the great river. The Corps of Discovery met and depended upon Native communities all along its route, and the river country around Sioux City remains rich with that history.

Sioux City embraces its place on the Lewis and Clark trail, and a modern interpretive center along the riverfront tells the fuller story of the expedition, its members, and the peoples they encountered. The Floyd monument, standing watch on its bluff, is the emotional anchor of that story, marking the single grave along the whole long journey.

Spring and summer bring green to the river valley and long light to the bluff, and the open grounds are pleasant for a visit and for taking in the wide view over the Missouri. The nearby interpretive center and riverfront make for an easy pairing.

Fall colors the wooded slopes along the river, and winter strips them bare and opens the long views, though the exposed bluff can be cold and windy. The monument grounds welcome visitors in every season, a quiet place to pause and remember a young man buried far from home.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.