Ohio River

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Ohio River
Ohio River viewed from Liberty Hill in Ripley, Ohio
Country	USA
States	Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania
Major cities	Pittsburgh, PA, Cincinnati, OH, Louisville, KY, Evansville, IN
Length	981 mi (1,579 km)
Watershed	189,422 mi² (490,601 km²)
Discharge	Metropolis, IL
- average	527,000 ft³/s (14,923 m³/s) (citation needed)
- maximum	1,210,000 ft³/s (34,263 m³/s)
- minimum	95,500 ft³/s (2,704 m³/s)
Discharge elsewhere
- Sewickley, PA	64,300 ft³/s (1,821 m³/s) (citation needed)
Primary source	Allegheny River
- location	Raymond, Potter County, Pennsylvania, USA
- coordinates	41°51′24″N, 77°52′30″W
- elevation	2,240 ft (683 m)
- length	325 mi (523 km)
Other source	Monongahela River
- location	Fairmont, Marion County, West Virginia, USA
- coordinates	39°27′53″N, 80°09′13″W
- elevation	880 ft (268 m)
- length	128 mi (206 km)
Source confluence
- location	Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA
- coordinates	40°26′32″N, 80°00′52″W
- elevation	730 ft (223 m)
Mouth	Mississippi River
- location	Cairo, Alexander County, Illinois, USA
- coordinates	36°59′12″N, 89°07′52″W
- elevation	290 ft (88 m)
Major tributaries
- left	Kanawha River, Kentucky River, Cumberland River, Tennessee River
- right	Wabash River
Ohio River basin

The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers converge to form the Ohio at Point State Park, making Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania a well known city along the Ohio River

.

Cincinnati, Ohio is a well known city along the Ohio River, historically known for its riverboats. The Tall Stacks festival annually celebrates this connection between Cincinnati and the Ohio River.

With a population of over 550,000; Louisville is the largest and fastest growing city on the Ohio River

The Ohio River is the second largest river in North America, the 6th largest in the Western Hemisphere, and the 12th largest river in world.^{[citation needed]} It is approximately 981 miles (1,579 km) from its beginning in Western Pennsylvania to its end in Mississippi River.

The river had great significance in the history of the Native Americans. It was a primary transportation route during the westward expansion of the early U.S. It flows through or along the border of six states, and its watershed encompasses 14 states, including many of the states of the southeastern U.S. through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River. During the eighteenth century, it was the southern boundary of the Northwest Territory, thus serving as the border between free and slave territory.

[edit] Geography and hydrography

The river is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From Pittsburgh, it flows northwest through western Pennsylvania, before making an abrupt turn to the south-southwest at the West Virginia—Ohio—Pennsylvania triple state line, from which point it forms the border between West Virginia and Ohio, upstream of Wheeling, West Virginia.

The river then follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course before bending to a west-southwest course for most of its length. It flows along or through West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, until it joins the Mississippi near the city of Cairo, Illinois.

Major tributaries of the river, indicated by the location of their mouth, include:

• Allegheny River — Pennsylvania
• Monongahela River — Pennsylvania
• Beaver River— Pennsylvania
• Wheeling Creek— West Virginia
• Little Muskingum River — Ohio
• Duck Creek — Ohio
• Muskingum River — Ohio
• Little Kanawha River — West Virginia
• Hocking River — Ohio
• Kanawha River — West Virginia
• Guyandotte River — West Virginia
• Big Sandy River — Kentucky-West Virginia border
• Scioto River — Ohio
• Little Miami River — Ohio
• Licking River — Kentucky
• Great Miami River — Ohio-Indiana border
• Kentucky River — Kentucky
• Green River — Kentucky
• Wabash River — Indiana-Illinois border
• Saline River — Illinois
• Cumberland River — Kentucky
• Tennessee River — Kentucky
• Cache River — Illinois

[edit] Drainage Basin

Lawrenceburg, Indiana is one of many towns that use the Ohio as a shipping avenue.

The Ohio's drainage basin covers 189,422 square miles (490,603 km²), including the eastern-most regions of the Mississippi Basin. States drained by the Ohio include:

• Illinois (the southeast quarter of the state),
• Indiana (all but the northern area of the state),
• Ohio (the southern half of the state),
• New York (a small area of the southern border along the headwaters of the Allegheny River),
• Pennsylvania (a corridor from the southwestern corner to north central border),
• Maryland (a small corridor along the Youghiogheny River on the state's western border),
• West Virginia (all but the eastern panhandle of the state),
• Kentucky (all but a small part in the extreme west of the state drained directly by the Mississippi River),
• Tennessee (all but a small part in the extreme west of the state drained directly by the Mississippi River),
• Virginia (the western border of the state),
• North Carolina (the western border of the state),
• Georgia (the northwest corner of the state),
• Alabama (the northern portion of the state), and
• Mississippi (the northeast corner of the state).

[edit] Geology

The Ohio River is young from a geologic standpoint. The river formed on a piecemeal basis beginning between 2.5 and 3 million years ago. The earliest Ice Ages occurred at this time and dammed portions of north flowing rivers. The Teays River was the largest of these rivers, and the modern Ohio River flows within segments of the ancient Teays. The ancient rivers were rearranged or consumed by glaciers and lakes.

[edit] Upper Ohio River

The upper Ohio River formed when one of the glacial lakes overflowed into a south flowing tributary of the Teays River. Prior to that event, the north flowing Steubenville River (no longer in existence) ended between New Martinsville and Paden City, West Virginia. Likewise, the south flowing Marietta River (no longer in existence) ended between the cities. The overflowing lake carved through the separating hill and connected the rivers. The resulting floodwaters enlarged the small Marietta valley to a size more typical of a large river. The new large river subsequently drained glacial lakes and melting glaciers at the end of several Ice Ages. The valley grew with each major Ice Age.

Many small rivers were altered or abandoned after the upper Ohio River formed. Valleys of some abandoned rivers can still be seen on satellite and aerial images of the hills of Ohio and West Virginia between Marietta, Ohio, and Huntington, West Virginia. As testimony to the major changes that occurred, the valleys are actually found on hilltops.

[edit] Middle Ohio River

The middle Ohio River formed in a manner similar to formation of the upper Ohio River. A north-flowing river was temporarily dammed southwest of present-day Louisville, Kentucky, creating a large lake until the dam burst. A new route was carved to the Mississippi River, and eventually the upper and middle sections combined to form what is essentially the modern Ohio River.

[edit] History

Confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at Cairo, Illinois.

Carl D. Perkins Bridge in Portsmouth, Ohio with Ohio River and Scioto River tributary on right.

Since it was considered by pre-Columbian inhabitants of eastern North America to be part of a single river continuing on through the lower Mississippi, it is perhaps an understatement to characterize the Ohio as a mere tributary of the Mississippi. The river is 981 miles (1,579 km) long and carries the largest volume of water of any tributary of the Mississippi. The Indians and early explorers and settlers of the region often considered the Allegheny to be part of the Ohio, though the forks (the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at what is now Pittsburgh) was considered a strategic military location.

On May 19, 1749, King George II of Great Britain granted the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks. Exploration of the territory and trade with the Indians in the region near the Forks by British colonials from both Pennsylvania and Virginia—both of whom claimed the territory—led to conflict with French forces that also claimed the region and had built forts along the Allegheny River. This led to the Seven Years' War, in which Britain gained sovereignty over the Ohio Valley.

Louisville, Kentucky, was founded at the only major natural navigational barrier on the river, the Falls of the Ohio. These were a series of rapids where the river flowed over hard, fossil-rich beds of limestone. The first locks on the river were built at Louisville to circumnavigate the falls. Today it is the site of McAlpine Locks and Dam.

Because the Ohio River flowed westwardly, it became the convenient means of westward movement by pioneers traveling from western Pennsylvania. After reaching the mouth of the Ohio, settlers would travel north on the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri. There, some continued on up the Missouri River, some up the Mississippi, and some further west over land routes. In the early 19th century, pirates settled at Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, waylaid travelers on their way down the river, killed them, stole their goods, and scuttled their boats. The folktales of Mike Fink recall the keelboats used for commerce in the early days of European settlement.

Other boats traveled south on the Mississippi to New Orleans and sometimes beyond to the Gulf of Mexico and other ports in the Americas and Europe. This provided a much needed route for goods from the west, since the trek east over the Appalachian Mountains was long and arduous. The need for access to the port of New Orleans by settlers in the Ohio Valley led to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

Because it is the Southern border of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the Ohio River was a part of the border that divided free states and slave states in the years before the American Civil War. The expression "sold down the river" originated as a lament of Kentucky slaves being split apart from their families and sold in Louisville and other Kentucky locations to be shipped via the Ohio River down to New Orleans to be sold yet again to owners of cotton and sugar field plantations.^[1][2] Before and during the Civil War, the Ohio River was called the "River Jordan" by slaves escaping to freedom in the North via the Underground Railroad.^[3] As depicted in several novels by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Toni Morrison, the Ohio River was the barrier which, by crossing by boat or on ice floes, slaves were freed. Today, the Ohio River generally separates Midwestern Great Lakes states from Southern border states.

The charter for Virginia went not to the middle of the Ohio River, but to its far shore so the entire river was included. Wherever the river serves as a boundary between states, the river essentially belongs to the two states on the south that were divided from Virginia. Kentucky brought suit against Indiana in the early 1980s because of the building of the Marble Hill nuclear power plant in Indiana, which would have discharged its waste water into the river. The U.S. Supreme Court held that Kentucky's jurisdiction (and, implicitly, that of West Virginia) extended only to the low water mark of 1793 (important because the river has been extensively dammed for navigation, so that the present river bank is north of the old low water mark.) Similarly in the 1990s, Kentucky disputed Illinois' right to collect taxes on a riverboat casino docked in Metropolis, citing their control of the entire river. Aztar opened their own casino riverboat that docked in Evansville, Indiana at about the same time. Although cruises on the Ohio river were at first done in an oval pattern up and down the Ohio, the state of Kentucky soon protested and cruises were limited to going forwards then reversing and going backwards on the Indiana shore only.

In the early 1980s, the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area was established at Louisville, Kentucky. In 2006, Cincinnati, Ohio, Indie Rock band Nevada Smith published a bootleg version of their song "Il Fiume Fluisce Colore Maronne", a humorous protest song against the pollution in the Ohio.

[edit] River depth

While the Ohio River is quite deep it is a naturally shallow river that was artificially deepened by series of dams. The dams raise the water level in shallow stretches, allowing for commercial navigation. Near its origin at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, the Ohio remains very shallow, never rising above around 30 feet deep all the way past Cincinnati. From its origin to Cincinnati, the average depth is approximately 27 feet. However, once past Cincinnati, the river deepens substantially. Due to the damming, along with glacier formations and migrations in the latter part of the second Ice Age, the rivers depth increases nearly five-fold over about 100 miles, coming to a maximum depth of 168 feet just west of Louisville, Kentucky. The 50 miles around Louisville represent the deepest area of the river with an average depth of approximately 132 feet, allowing for much larger vessels to traverse the river. From Louisville, the river loses its depth very gradually until its confluence with the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois where it has an approximate depth of 20 feet.

[edit] Cities and towns

Main article: List of cities and towns along the Ohio River

Cities along the Ohio include:

[edit] Recreation

The world record for the largest blue catfish taken in the line class (104 lbs.), was set on the Ohio River in 1999. The river also holds records for the following species for the state of Kentucky:^[4]

• Channel catfish (32 lbs.)
• Longnose gar (40 lbs.)
• Paddlefish (106 lbs.)
• Silver carp (9 lbs., 6oz.)
• Skipjack herring (3.1 lbs.)
• Saugeye (6.58 lbs.)

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• List of crossings of the Ohio River
• List of variant names of the Ohio River
• List of Pennsylvania rivers
• Ohio and Erie Canal
• Ohio River Bridges Project
• Ohio River flood of 1937
• Watersheds of Illinois
• List of islands in West Virginia (including islands on Ohio River)

[edit] External links

• Historic Ohio, the magazine
• Ohio Historical Preservation Group
• Ohio River Valley Families Online Searchable Database, a genealogy resource
• Image at the confluence with the Mississippi River
• Watershed information
• Ohio River Forecast Center, which issues official river forecasts for rhe Ohio River and its tributaries

[edit] Online maps and aerial photos

Mouth or other endpoint (Mississippi River)

• WikiSatellite view at WikiMapia
• Street map from MapQuest
• Topographic map from TopoZone
• Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
• Satellite image from Google Maps
• Other maps and aerial photos

Source (Pittsburgh)

• WikiSatellite view at WikiMapia
• Street map from MapQuest
• Topographic map from TopoZone
• Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
• Satellite image from Google Maps
• Other maps and aerial photos