In 1749 Great Britain established the Ohio Company to settle and trade in the area. The combined Allegheny-Ohio river is 1,310 miles (2,110 km) long and carries the largest volume of water of any tributary of the Mississippi. Cincinnati skyline showing the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge to Covington, Kentucky. The dams raise the water level and have turned the river largely into a series of reservoirs, eliminating shallow stretches and allowing for commercial navigation. Prior to that event, the north-flowing Steubenville River (no longer in existence) ended between New Martinsville and Paden City, West Virginia. [13] For thousands of years, Native Americans used the river as a major transportation and trading route. [14] The river formed on a piecemeal basis beginning between 2.5 and 3 million years ago. In his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson stated: "The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Check flight prices and hotel availability for your visit. Other states had to limit their cruises to going forwards, then reversing and going backwards on the Indiana shore only. Originally applied just to the Ohio River, the "Pelisipi" name later was variously applied back and forth between the Ohio River and the Clinch River in Virginia and Tennessee. The largest northern tributary is the Wabash River. This provided a much-needed export route for goods from the west, since the trek east over the Appalachian Mountains was long and arduous. The Ohio River is a 981 miles long river that is found within the region of Laurentia in the US. Largely rural, they shipped much of their produce along the river to ports such as The river then follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course until Cincinnati, before bending to a west-southwest course for most of its length. Ohio river on a map. The Commission also noted mercury pollution as an ongoing concern, citing a 500% increase in mercury discharges between 2007 and 2013. Ohio is a state in the northeastern United States, with a shoreline at Lake Erie. From there, it forms the border between West Virginia and Ohio, upstream of Wheeling, West Virginia. The number in parentheses after the port's location corresponds to the numbered icons on the map. [34] The water depth predictions are relative to each local flood plain based upon predicted rainfall in the Ohio River basin in five reports as follows: The water levels for the Ohio River from Smithland Lock and Dam to Cairo, Illinois, are predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center.[35]. Detailed topographic maps and aerial photos of Ohio are available in the Geology.com store. The Ohio River Greenway Trail is a key segment of a "major" greenway corridor being developed in the "Keystone State" and is also serving to complete an essential section in a nationally, significant linear park system through the interconnection of existing trails in five states – Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. ohio map with counties. "[5] In the late 18th century, the river was the southern boundary of the Northwest Territory. Through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes several states of the southeastern U.S. A north-flowing river was temporarily dammed by natural forces southwest of present-day Louisville, creating a large lake until the dam burst. Rhonda Belford, Chairman Ohio River Scenic Byway PO Box 746 Rosiclare, Illinois 62982-0746 The movement across the Allegheny Mountains of British settlers and the claims of the area near modern-day Pittsburgh led to conflict with the French, who had forts in the Ohio River Valley. This Ohio River map begins in Pittsburgh, PA (where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet) and ends at Cairo IL. Other cities of interest include Cairo, Illinois, at the confluence of the Ohio with the Mississippi River and the southernmost and westernmost city on the river; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the easternmost city on the river at the head or Forks of the Ohio, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to create the Ohio; and Beaver, Pennsylvania, the site of colonial Fort McIntosh and the northernmost city on the river. The upper Ohio River formed when one of the glacial lakes overflowed into a south-flowing tributary of the Teays River. The largest immediate drop in water level is below the McAlpine Locks and Dam at the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, where flood stage is reached when the water reaches 23 feet (7 m) on the lower gauge. Searchable listings of Ohio River RV parks and campgrounds. The overflowing lake carved through the separating hill and connected the rivers. This is a 258 acre lake owned by the County. A private casino riverboat that docked in Evansville, Indiana, on the Ohio River opened about the same time. The Ohio River boatmen were the inspiration for performer Dan Emmett, who in 1843 wrote the song "The Boatman's Dance". The Ohio River Scenic Byway in Indiana is comprised of the following segments totaling 302.38 miles. For a brief time, until 1851, it was the world's largest suspension bridge. Ohio River Major Rivers of the United States Map. Historic architecture along the way retains a charm … The McAlpine Locks and Dam, a shipping canal bypassing the rapids, now allows commercial navigation from the Forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh to the Port of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico. a) Authority of Lockmasters The lockmaster shall be charged with the immediate control and management of … The section of the river that runs southwest from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois is around tens of thousands of years old. [4][6] "Great river" and "large creek" have also been given as translations. The floodwaters enlarged the small Marietta valley to a size more typical of a large river. After reaching the mouth of the Ohio, settlers would travel north on the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri. Download ORWT Cover Page (PDF) Download ORWT Map Page (PDF) Hard copies are available from the Beaver County Recreation & Tourism Office. The entire Ohio River is a federally regulated waterway. From its origin to Cincinnati, the average depth is approximately 15 feet (5 m). There are several major cities located along the northern and southern banks of the river including Cincinnati, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Louisville, Kentucky.[14]. Only Illinois, among the border states, has no significant cities on the river. The Indians and early explorers and settlers of the region also often considered the Allegheny to be part of the Ohio. Beaver County Tourism. The Ohio River is a 981-mile (1,579 km) long river in the United States. Beaver Falls, PA 15010. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers improvements were expanded again in the 1960s, forming the present-day McAlpine Locks and Dam. The route offers a pleasant escape from suburban concerns as it passes villages, well-kept barns, vineyards, and orchards. Details Hits: 14354. Forts along the Ohio river include Fort Pitt (Pennsylvania), Fort McIntosh (Pennsylvania), Fort Randolph (West Virginia), Fort Henry (West Virginia), Fort Harmar (Ohio), Fort Washington (Ohio), and Fort Nelson (Kentucky). 56.5: Significant flooding of California occurs. The natural depth of the river varied from about 3 to 20 feet (0.91 to 6.10 m). Carl Perkins Bridge in Portsmouth, Ohio with Ohio River and Scioto River tributary on right. Shows river course from New Martinsville, W.Va. to Pittsburgh. The Ohio River Scenic Byway follows the Ohio River through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio ending at Steubenville, Ohio, on the river. From Louisville, the river loses depth very gradually until its confluence with the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois, where it has an approximate depth of 19 feet (6 m). Ohio rivers shown on the map. "Good River". The It is available for use “as highway[s] for substantial interstate or foreign commerce” (33 CFR § 2.36). [14] The Teays River was the largest of these rivers. Similarly, in the 1990s, Kentucky challenged Illinois' right to collect taxes on a riverboat casino docked in Metropolis, citing its own control of the entire river. Use, Administration, and Navigation 207.300 Ohio River, above Cairo, IL, and their tributaries; use, administration, and navigation. Before the river was created, large parts of North America were covered by water forming a saltwater lake about 200 miles across and 400 miles in length. Brown, sediment-laden water flowing generally northeast to south from the Ohio River is distinct from the green and relatively sediment-poor water of the Mississippi River (flowing northwest to south). The Ohio River forms its border with West Virginia in the southeast and Kentucky in the south. There are many large tributaries that give the Ohio River its size. Short-lived special purpose forts included Fort Steuben (Ohio), Fort Finney (Indiana), Fort Finney (Ohio) and Fort Gower (Ohio). The river is sometimes considered as the western extension of the Mason–Dixon Line that divided Pennsylvania from Maryland, and thus part of the border between free and slave territory, and between the Northern and Southern United States or Upper South. However, the river's deepest point is 168 feet (51 m) on the western side of Louisville, Kentucky. The discovery and traversal of the Ohio River by Europeans admits of several possibilities, all in the latter half of the 17th century. It is considered to separate Midwestern Great Lakes states from the Upper South states, which were historically border states in the Civil War. The Ohio River is a climatic transition area, as its water runs along the periphery of the humid subtropical and humid continental climate areas. Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826. Most were abandoned by 1800. Ohio River The river then follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course until Cincinnati, before bending to a west-southwest course for most of its length. 1:700,000. Major river in the midwestern United States, The widest point on the Ohio River is just north of. Kentucky brought suit against Indiana in the early 1980s because of the building of the never-completed Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant in Indiana, which would have discharged its waste water into the river. It is the third largest river by discharge volume in the United States and the largest tributary by volume of the north-south flowing Mississippi River that divides the eastern from western United States. 121 Bradys Run Road. Shortened in the Shawnee language to pelewa thiipi, spelewathiipi or peleewa thiipiiki, the name evolved through variant forms such as "Polesipi", "Peleson", "Pele Sipi" and "Pere Sipi", and eventually stabilized to the variant spellings "Pelisipi", "Pelisippi" and "Pellissippi". Relief shown by hachures. The Ohio River is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Ohio River Scenic Byway in Indiana is comprised of the following segments totaling 302.38 miles: Known as butternuts, they formed the dominant culture in the southern portions of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois with a society that was primarily Southern in nature. Portions of Route 52 in Ohio, Route 56 in Indiana, and Route 8 in Kentucky are flooded. Thus Wheeling Island, the largest inhabited island in the Ohio River, belongs to West Virginia, although it is closer to the Ohio shore than to the West Virginia shore. In pencil: Montresor, 1776. The Ohio River becomes a tributary of the Mississippi River directly south of Cairo, Illinois, a small city on the spit of land where the rivers converge. Before there were cities, there were colonial forts. Louisville, Kentucky, The deepest point of the Ohio River is a scour hole just below Cannelton locks and dam (river mile 720.7). Ohio has approximately 29,113 miles of river, of which 212.9 miles are designated as wild & scenic—less than 1% of the state's river miles. Trading boats and ships traveled south on the Mississippi to New Orleans, and sometimes beyond to the Gulf of Mexico and other ports in the Americas and Europe. The bedrock of the Ohio Valley was mostly set during this time. Use, Administration, and Navigation 207.300 Ohio River, above Cairo, IL, and their tributaries; use, administration, and navigation. [32], The Ohio River is heavily industrialized and populated and sees traffic from large barge cargoes carrying oil, steel and other industrial goods. The course forms the northern borders of West Virginia and Kentucky; and the southern borders of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, until it joins the Mississippi River at the city of Cairo, Illinois. The Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Kaw lived in the Ohio Valley, but under pressure from the Iroquois to the northeast, migrated west of the Mississippi River in the 17th century to territory now defined as Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Among rivers wholly or mostly in the United States, it is the second largest by discharge volume, the tenth longest and has the eighth largest drainage basin. The word “Ohio” originated from the Seneca language of the Seneca people. It is the source of drinking water for three million people.[3]. There are hundreds of other cities, towns, villages and unincorporated populated places on the river, most of them very small. During the nineteenth century, emigrants from Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky settled along the northern bank of the Ohio river. Cincinnati.[25]. During the American Revolution, in 1776 the British military engineer John Montrésor created a map of the river showing the strategic location of Fort Pitt, including specific navigational information about the Ohio River's rapids and tributaries in that area. It is inhabited by fauna and flora of both climates. [2] The river flows through or along the border of six states, and its drainage basin includes parts of 14 states. Of the fifty states, it is the 34th largest by area, the seventh most populous, and the tenth most densely populated. Pennsylvania: a corridor from the southwestern corner to north central border. The ports and harbors situated on the Ohio River are shown on the map and port index by country table below. In 1763, following the war, France ceded the area to Britain, and thus to the settlers in the colonies of Britain. Fears that Louisville's transshipment industry would collapse proved ill-founded: the increasing size of steamships and barges on the river meant that the outdated locks could only service the smallest vessels until well after the Civil War. From Mapcarta, the free map. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the bestselling novel that fueled abolitionist work, was the best known of the anti-slavery novels that portrayed such escapes across the Ohio. In the early 1980s, the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area was established at Clarksville, Indiana. Fortunately, the bridge was not blown up during the American Civil War. The times have been expressed by 20th-century novelists as well, such as the Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison, whose novel Beloved was adapted as a film of the same name. There, some continued on up the Missouri River, some up the Mississippi, and some farther west over land routes. The Falls were a series of rapids where the river dropped 26 feet (7.9 m) in a stretch of about 2 miles (3.2 km). The Ohio's drainage basin covers 189,422 square miles (490,600 km2), encompassing the easternmost regions of the Mississippi Basin. The name "Ohio" comes from the Seneca language (an Iroquoian language), Ohi:yo' (roughly pronounced oh-hee-yoh, with the vowel in "hee" held longer), a proper name derived from ohiːyoːh ("good river"), therefore literally translating to "Good River". This conflict was called the French and Indian War, and would merge into the global Anglo-French struggle, the Seven Years' War. The largest tributaries of the Ohio by discharge volume are: By drainage basin area, the largest tributaries are:[36], The largest tributaries by length are:[36], Major tributaries of the river, in order from the head to the mouth of the Ohio, include:[36]. Whether clinging to the shores of the river, or linking farms and historic river communities, the Ohio River Scenic Byway is the common thread joining a geographically broad and culturally diverse region together. [7][8], Native Americans, including the Lenni Lenape and Iroquois, considered the Ohio and Allegheny rivers as the same, as is suggested by a New York State road sign on Interstate 86 that refers to the Allegheny River also as Ohi:yo';[9] the Geographic Names Information System lists O-hee-yo and O-hi-o as variant names for the Allegheny. Where the river was narrow, it was the way to freedom for thousands of slaves escaping to the North, many helped by free blacks and whites of the Underground Railroad resistance movement. The Ohio drains parts of 14 states in four regions. The Ohio River has 9 ports and harbors. In winter, it regularly freezes over at Pittsburgh but rarely farther south toward Cincinnati and Louisville. Ohio River, East Pete Rose Way, Lytle Park Historic District, Mount Adams, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, 45202, USA (39.09323-84.50933). Use our easy Lodging Search to find exactly the type of accommodation you are looking for at the right price. The lower Ohio River just below Louisville is obstructed by rapids known as the Falls of the Ohio where the water level falls 26 feet (7.9 m) in 2 miles (3.2 km) and is impassible for navigation. Ohio River is a confluence in Kentucky and has an elevation of 295 feet. In the early 19th century, river pirates such as Samuel Mason, operating out of Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, waylaid travelers on their way down the river. Exploration of the territory and trade with the Indians in the region near the Forks brought British colonials from both Pennsylvania and Virginia across the mountains, and both colonies claimed the territory. [4] European discovery of the Ohio River may be attributed to English explorers from Virginia in the latter half of the 17th century. The lake is within a 3,300-acre county park off Route 50 between Hickory and Avella; go 2.5 miles west of intersection of Routes 18 and 50. Because the river is the southern border of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, it was part of the border between free states and slave states in the years before the American Civil War. Cities along the Ohio are also among the oldest cities in their respective states and among the oldest cities in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains (by date of founding): Old Shawneetown, Illinois, 1748; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1758; Wheeling, West Virginia, 1769; Huntington, West Virginia, 1775; Louisville, Kentucky, 1779; Clarksville, Indiana, 1783; Maysville, Kentucky, 1784; Martin's Ferry, Ohio, 1785; Marietta, Ohio, 1788; Cincinnati, Ohio, 1789; Manchester, Ohio, 1790; Beaver, Pennsylvania, 1792; and Golconda, Illinois, 1798. The ancient rivers were rearranged or consumed. Indiana's Ohio River Scenic Byway is a winding, hilly route follows the Ohio River. The colonial charter for Virginia defined its territory as extending to the north shore of the Ohio, so that the riverbed was "owned" by Virginia. In this area, the river flowed over hard, fossil-rich beds of limestone. 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