On July 25, 1806, while descending the Yellowstone River, Captain William Clark, of Louis and Clark Expedition, wrote that, “this rock I ascended and from it’s top had a most extensive view in every direction.
This rock which I shall Call Pompy’s Tower, named for Jean Baptiste ‘Pomp’ Charbonneau, is 200 feet high and 400 paces in secumphrance and only axcessable on one Side which is from the N. E the other parts of it being a perpendicular Clift of lightish Coloured gritty rock on the top there is a tolerable Soil of about 5 or 6 feet thick Covered with Short grass. The Indians have made 2 piles of Stone on the top of this Tower. The nativs have ingraved on the face of this rock the figures of animals near which I marked my name and the day of the month & year."
Pompeys Pillar was part of the original 1803 Louisiana Purchase. It was in the public domain until the mid-1800s when a treaty made it part of the Crow Indian Reservation. A later action removed the area from the reservation but gave Crow tribal members the first right to homestead the lands.
Captain Clark named the Pillar “Pompy’s Tower” in honor of Sacagawea’s son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, whom he had nicknamed “Pomp.” Nicholas Biddle, first editor of Lewis and Clark’s journals, changed the name to “Pompeys Pillar.”
Pompeys Pillar is one of the most famous sandstone buttes in America. It bears the only remaining physical evidence of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. On the face of the 150-foot butte, Captain William Clark carved his name and the date, July 25, 1806, during his return to the United States through the beautiful Yellowstone Valley. The Rock and signature appear on the trail today as it did 200 years ago.
Native Americans called the Pillar “the place where the mountain lion lies.” Some observers suggest that a sandstone formation, that is a part of the Pillar, which resembles a mountain lion’s head, is the reason for the name. Another theory cites live mountain lions being spotted in the area.
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