Restoration & Renovation

Summer Wheat’s JewelHouse

James Turrell’s Skyspace

Ed Dwight’s Weathervane

Restorative Practices

Nuestro Legado/Our Legacy Series: Manuel Lisa & U.S. Expansion Westward

Saturday, October 14
Nuestro Legado/Our Legacy Series: Manuel Lisa & U.S. Expansion Westward
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
$10 per person
J.E. Dunn Construction Theater – 3rd Floor
Tickets Required. Space is Limited.
Click here to purchase tickets

Manuel de Lisa (1772-1820) was a Spanish American frontiersman who was born in Cuba and educated in Spanish New Orleans.  He started a trading business along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers as a young man, and by 1779 he established a trading post in Vincennes, Indiana.  In the same year he married his first wife, Polly Charles Chew.  The couple moved to St. Louis and soon became one of the leading fur trading companies in the region.

 Lisa automatically gained United States citizenship when Louisiana was purchased by the United States in 1803. As an U.S. fur trader, explorer, and U.S. Indian agent he helped open the Missouri River region to Louis and Clarks’ Corps of Discovery expedition and to eventual westward expansion.  In this session, Dr. Gene T. Chávez, Historian-in-Residence, will discuss Lisa’s role in making the expansion westward of the United States possible.