City approves growth funds for fort wall

NEBRASKA CITY - City commissioners approved a $25,000 growth fund grant for construction of a log wall around the Wood River Fort Annex at the Lewis & Clark Center at Nebraska City.
A crew led by Butch Bouvier and Doug Freidli used logs from 200 dead trees left by flooding on the Missouri River bottoms to construct five buildings to replicate the first built by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804.

The $25,000 will be used to help move additional logs for use in the wall.
Economic Developer Dan Mauk said the fort is a tourism activity so it qualifies for growth funds.
Mauk: “The benefit to our community is very clear.”
Friedli said the Lewis & Clark Center celebrated its 20th anniversary during construction of the fort.

Friedli: “We’ve welcomed over 280,000 people to our center. We’ve had people from all 50 states every year for 20 years in a row and we’ve also welcomes members from foreign countries.”
Friedli: “This project will bring more visitors. We have already seen some of those as we’ve doing construction over the past year as we built the firsts five cabins.”
There were 561 third to fifth graders on the grounds for living a history event in August.
He hopes for completion of the wall next fall.