Meriwether Lewis to be memorialized in Tennessee today

HOHENWALD, Tenn.  — Two hundred years after he died mysteriously, explorer Meriwether Lewis is being honored with a service memorializing him as a gung-ho hero.

Hundreds of people are expected to gather Wednesday to salute Lewis at a monument on his gravesite in the Middle Tennessee county where he died and that is named in his honor.

From 1803 to 1806, Lewis and William Clark explored the Louisiana Purchase territory and land westward to the Pacific. They mapped routes through the Rocky Mountains and collected data about wildlife, climate and natural resources.

Some historians believe Lewis fatally shot himself in the head in 1809. Others believe that he died as a result of a plot by his political enemies. He was the governor of the Louisiana Territory at the time of his death.