Profile of Sacagawea with her infant son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau being carried on her back.

Sacagawea (1788-1812) was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition achieve each of its chartered mission objectives exploring the Louisiana Purchase. With the expedition, between 1804 and 1806, she traveled thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, established cultural contacts with Native American populations, and researched natural history.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in May 1804, from near St. Louis making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast.

Engraver: Glenna Goodacre (GG)

The reverse design depicts a Mohawk ironworker reaching for an I-beam that is swinging into position, rivets on the left and right side of the border, and a high elevation view of the city skyline in the background.

The Mohawk people are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy. They were historically based in the Mohawk Valley in present-day upstate New York west of Albany. As one of the five original members of the Iroquois League, or Haudenosaunee, the Mohawk were known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door.

The tradition of Mohawk high iron working dates to 1886, when the Dominion Bridge Company started a bridge from the Kahnawake Mohawk community across the St. Lawrence River. Mohawks were first employed as day laborers, but they insisted on working on the bridge itself, and supervisors were amazed at their ability to handle heights. The danger of the work became evident in 1907 at the Quebec Bridge project, designed to be the largest cantilevered bridge in the world. On August 29, the structure failed, and the bridge collapsed into the river, killing 33 Mohawk workers. Four family names were wiped out. After the disaster the Kahnawake Clan Mothers ruled that large numbers of Mohawk men could not work on the same project at the same time.

Native ironworkers were in increasing demand in the 20th century as skyscrapers, tall bridges and other high elevation projects began to go up around North America. Crews from Kahnawake and the Mohawk Akwesasne communities in upstate New York and Canada made the trek to New York City to build its skyline, including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and work above the 80th floor on the World Trade Center twin towers.

Designer: Ronald D. Sanders (RS)
Engraver: Phebe Hemphill (PH)

Inscribed along the edge of the coin is the year of minting or issuance of the coin, the mint mark, and also the legend "E Pluribus Unum" (Latin for "Out of many, one").

Position A: edge lettering reads upside-down when Sacagawea's portrait (obverse) faces up.
Position B: edge lettering reads normally when Sacagawea's portrait (obverse) faces up.