The National Park Service reports the modern belief that at that time, the confluence was located 0.25 miles (0.40 km) north of the present Kaw Point.

[3] Patrick Gass's journal entry for June 26 said: "It was agreed to remain here during the 27th and 28th where we pitched our tents and built [a six-foot-high brush and log] bowers in front of them.

"[1] The expedition's journals noted that the location would be appropriate for a fort, and teemed with deer, elk, bison, bear, and many "Parrot queets", the now extinct Carolina parakeet.

[2] At 94 degrees 36 minutes west longitude, Kaw Point defined Missouri's western border from Iowa to Arkansas when it became a state in 1821.

Kaw Point became part of Kansas Territory in 1854 when the United States Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened the area for white settlement.