Celebrating 100 Years After the Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland, Oregon, was intended to celebrate the Centennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Guided by Sacagawea, the Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, charted routes that later supported trade and settlement.
Plans for the Centennial began in 1895. Federal support from President Teddy Roosevelt was received in 1904, when he signed an appropriations bill for the Exposition and authorized a gold dollar to commemorate the fair.
Design Details
The Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint, Charles E. Barber, began work on the designs of the Lewis and Clark Exposition Gold Dollar. Basing their likenesses on contemporary portraits and historical descriptions, Barber designed the first dual-portrait coin, creating U.S. commemorative history. In other instances, most designers typically show conjoined busts of the two people on the obverse, along with a reverse design. Barber instead placed a portrait of Lewis on one side and a portrait of Clark on the other.
The obverse of the 1904 coin features a left-facing portrait of Lewis. Surrounding him at the periphery is the legend “LEWIS CLARK EXPOSITION PORTLAND ORE.” with the date “1904” at the bottom. The reverse of the coin has a portrait of Clark, facing left, with the legend “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” surmounting the portrait and the denomination “ONE DOLLAR” at the bottom.
The 1905 coin is exactly the same style, and the only discernible difference is the date “1905.” The Mint struck and distributed 10,025 coins in 1904 and 10,041 coins in 1905.
Coin dealer and promoter, Farran Zerbe, advocated for this coin and also for the right to be the Official Distributor, as he was on the 1903 Louisiana Purchase Exposition Gold Dollar.
Mintage Details
Between the 1904 and 1905 issues, the Philadelphia Mint struck a total of 60,069 coins, but the majority of these coins, 40,003, were melted due to slow sales. This was among the early gold commemorative coins struck and dated in more than one year. The coins were sold loose or mounted in brooches, pins, watch fobs, and even souvenir spoons. The prices for any of these coins, in any format, were all the same – $3.00 each. The price later dropped to $2.00 in response to slow sales.
The Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair opened in Portland on June 1, 1905. Over two and a half million people visited the fair between June 1st and its close on October 14. The Sacajawea and Jean-Baptiste bronze statue by Alice Cooper was unveiled at the exposition on July 6, 1905. Suffrage leaders present at the dedication included Susan B. Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, and Abigail Scott Duniway. Eva Emery Dye, author of the 1902 historical novel The Conquest, was also closely associated with the effort to promote Sacajawea’s public commemoration. In 1906, the statue was moved to its current location in Washington Park.
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