Park Receives Weyerhaeuser Foundation Grant
December 10, 2002

Superintendent Roger Giddings announced that the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation has given Hot Springs National Park a $2000.00 grant. The money will be used to create two traveling trunks for use by teachers to help tell students about the Dunbar-Hunter Expedition that came to Hot Springs in 1804-5. The trunks will contain information about the journey and everyday items the men would have brought along. It will also include a copy of the recently completed documentary film by AETN, "The Forgotten Expedition." The trunks will ready for use in the spring.

The Dunbar-Hunter Expedition has truly been forgotten by many history texts. William Dunbar, a planter and scientist living in Natchez, MS, was chosen to lead an exploratory party into the southern portions of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The original plan was to follow the Red River to its source. There was too much unrest with the Spanish and Native Americans along that route, so Dunbar suggested a trip to a regionally known curiosity, "the hot springs on the Washita." Jefferson agreed and the party, which included William Dunbar and his slave, Dr. George Hunter of Philadelphia and his son, a sergeant and 12 enlisted men from the garrison at New Orleans, and a guide, left Natchez on October 16, 1804, arrived at Hot Springs on December 9 and stayed until January 8, 1805. This first scientific expedition to visit the hot springs gave us a glimpse of the resource before much human influence took place.

To learn more about the Dunbar and Hunter Expedition, visit the park web site at http://www.nps.gov/hosp/expanded/text/handouts/dunbar_hunter.htm.