Niobrara, Neb. ? Forget Lewis and Clark.

Some towns in northeast Nebraska are celebrating a lesser-known member of the Corps of Discovery expedition who was definitely the most directionally challenged person in the group.

Pvt. George Shannon almost died of starvation during the expedition when he got lost for 16 days while in present-day northeast Nebraska just south of the Missouri River.

No one knows for sure the route Shannon walked before being reunited with the explorers on the river.

That hasn’t stopped 15 Nebraska communities in the area from creating and promoting the 240-mile Shannon Trail.

They are trying to draw thousands of Lewis and Clark buffs away from the river as they retrace the expedition on its 200th anniversary.

Laurie Larsen, a Bloomfield woman who leads the Shannon Trail Promoters, was looking for a tourism hook for those cities not on the Missouri River.

“I knew that Shannon had gotten lost in this area,” Larsen said. “It just kind of took off from there.”

In the name of poor Shannon, what has evolved is a scavenger hunt of sorts for families looking for a day’s adventure.

The valley where the Niobrara and the Missouri rivers meet is seen from a hilltop at Niobrara State Park in northeast Nebraska. This is the area where Pvt. George Shannon, the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, almost died of starvation when he got lost for 16 days. Fifteen Nebraska communities are honoring him with the 240-mile Shannon Trail.

Some communities along the trail have put up carved-wood statues of Shannon. Each features the private in a different pose during his lost days, and a few are hidden in the communities — some better than others.

The statue locations range from more obvious places, like in Hartington, where he’s standing in the open with a compass, or in Niobrara, where the statue is along Nebraska Highway 12, holding an American flag.

In searching for other statues, visitors will find themselves a little off the beaten path — much like the predicament Shannon faced. Larsen said the most difficult statue to find was inside a park in Crofton.

The most elaborate statue features Shannon and an American Indian just outside Santee, on the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation.

“Shannon is sitting on a stump and the Indian is standing over him, kind of saying, ‘What the heck are you doing here?'” Larsen said.

The other statues are in Bloomfield, Center, Creighton, Lindy, Verdigre, Wausa, Winnetoon and Wynot.

Businesses in each community offer to stamp a passport marking that particular statue. If all 12 statues are marked, the bearer will receive a limited-edition print commemorating the Shannon Trail.

Family re-enactor

A play, titled “A Tail of the Trail,” about Shannon’s own journey through the area had its initial run this summer in Verdigre and Crofton with plans for more performances next year.

In the audience for this summer’s run was Shannon’s great-great-nephew, Bob Shannon Anderson of Marysville, Ohio.

Anderson intends to take part in an entire 3 1/2-year re-enactment of the westward Lewis and Clark expedition, playing the role of Pvt. Shannon, who was the brother of Anderson’s great-grandmother.

Anderson, a widower with five children, plans to wear handsewn Army period uniforms throughout the trip, including when he gets lost in northeast Nebraska for 16 days starting Aug. 26, 2004, just like Pvt. Shannon did 200 years earlier.

“I’m going to leave the same place he did and start walking,” Anderson said. But the 62-year-old Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. retiree admitted he might walk the bridge across the Missouri River instead of trying to swim across.

At age 18, Shannon was the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. During his 16 days alone, he survived on wild grapes and the one rabbit he killed.

“I might eat a little bit better than he did,” Anderson said. “I’ve already got a potbelly.”

While he also doesn’t plan to carry a tent or stay in motels, Anderson might cheat by accepting lodging offers at people’s homes.

Anderson said he was not daunted by such a long re-enactment.

Unlike his hapless ancestor, “I know I can come home at any time,” he said.

“He just left and thought it sounded really good to him, probably the same as any other teenager,” Anderson said. “He thought, ‘What a great adventure.'”

Historical details lost

One historian said Shannon had received a bad rap, mainly because other corps members also strayed off. They just weren’t gone as long as Shannon.

“He simply misjudged it and thought the party was ahead of him, and kept rushing forward,” while the others were behind him the whole time, said Gary Moulton, a history professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Shannon’s troubles didn’t end once he was reunited with the expedition above Pickstown, S.D. He got lost again in 1805 when the Corps of Discovery was in the Three Forks area of Montana.

Moulton also disputes that Shannon got lost a second time, preferring to say he was separated from the group for a few days.

“People make a little much of it,” he said.

Shannon later lost a leg in a battle with the Arikara Indians and became known as “Peg Leg” Shannon.

His life was not all full of misfortune. He assisted Nicholas Biddle in preparing the first edition of the Lewis and Clark journals. Shannon later became a lawyer and eventually a senator from Missouri. He died in a courtroom while sitting as a judge, and was buried in Palmyra, Mo.