Ohio Theme Month
The Great River
“The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted.”
We learned the Buckeye State‘s official name came from the gargantuan waterway that forms its southern border: the Ohio River.
Ohi:yo’ is a Seneca word that means “good river” (to pronounce it correctly, hold the middle syllable of oh-HEE-yoh longer than typical English usage). Some sources point to an Iroquois word, O-Y-O, with a similar definition. Though “good river” seems to be the modern translation favored by experts, another interpretation is the grander “great river.”
This name is fitting, as the Ohio is undoubtedly a majestic river.
Officially, the Ohio flows from the confluence of two other waterways in Pittsburgh to the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois.
The Monongahela flows northward from West Virginia, while the Allegheny meanders through northern Pennsylvania and southern New York. The two meet at Pointe State Park, in the shadow of Pittsburgh’s football and baseball stadiums. Early Europeans placed great strategic importance on this spot. There, Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt arose to control the area, which eventually morphed into one of the biggest cities in the young United States.
From Pittsburgh to Cairo, the Ohio stretches 981 miles (1,579 kilometers), making it the 10th-longest river in the United States.
Indigenous people and early European explorers did not consider Pittsburgh to be the genesis of the Ohio. They viewed the Ohio and Allegheny to be the same waterway, with the Monongahela pouring into the bigger river at Pittsburgh. The Geographic Names Information System, developed by the United States Geological Survey, still lists O-hee-yo and O-hi-o as variant names for the Allegheny. Many road signs in the region use both Ohi:yo’ and Allegheny. If we utilize the mouth of the Allegheny as the source of the Ohio, the great river hits a length of 1,310 miles (2,110 kilometers). This distance would place the Ohio seventh on the list of the country’s longest rivers.
While being in the Top 10 for length is impressive, the river’s volume really unfurls its juggernaut flag.
While just the third-longest tributary of the Mississippi (behind the Missouri and Arkansas), the Ohio is by far the biggest contributor to the continent’s longest river by volume. The Ohio discharges nearly four times as much as the second-place Missouri River. When the Ohio joins the Mississippi, the great river is even significantly larger than the Mississippi itself.
Of course, since it’s fed by the Ohio, the Mississippi eventually becomes the biggest drainer of water in the nation, but the Ohio sits firmly in the second slot.
The Great River flows through or along six states: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.
Its watershed drains parts of 12 states, including New York, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Interestingly, water in the extreme northeastern corner of the state of Mississippi flows northward to the Ohio before rejoining its namesake waterway in Illinois.
Because of its length and breadth, the Ohio River has been a key to human civilizations in the region, an economic powerhouse for ancient Indigenous and modern cultures. For thousands of years before Europeans arrived, natives formed settlements along the river, using it for food, transportation, and trade. The extensive earthworks developed in the Ohio watershed display evidence of trade from across the continent, which would have been enabled and driven by the river. In modern times, many large cities developed on the banks, including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville.
The river features an attribute that drove settlement and trade. Except for one spot – near Louisville – the river is completely navigable. There, a series of rapids known as the Falls of the Ohio, presented a problem to the intrepid traveler. By the early 19th century, engineers had constructed locks to alleviate this nuisance, allowing goods to flow all the way down the Ohio to New Orleans and points across the globe. The only state to lack major metropolises along the waterway, perhaps not coincidentally, is Illinois, which is downriver from Louisville.
Kentucky’s largest city is also the site of the widest point of the river, where it spans a full mile.
When European explorers encountered the Great River for the first time, they would have beheld a gorgeous waterway filled with nearly 150 species of fish and 50 species of mussels. A slew of bird species, some permanent dwellers and some partaking of the river as they migrated north or south, would have filled the skies. Pristine oak, hickory, river birch, basswood, poplar, and buckeye forests would have towered over its banks.
This mighty waterway would have been an oasis of life.
In 1782, Thomas Jefferson called the Ohio the most beautiful river on the planet, touting its clear waters.
Unfortunately, the Founding Father’s report would be rather different today. The Ohio River Valley fostered two engines of civilizational progress: industrialization and agriculture. The Ohio provides drinking water for more than 5 million people, but it is now often listed as one of, if not the most, polluted rivers in the United States. Our ancestors did not steward industrial and farming runoff well. Heavy metals and fertilizers poured into the Ohio, robbing it of its pristine waters. We cut down the forests. We still haven’t really learned the lesson, as farming and industrial runoffs continue to plague the river. In 2020, for example, heavy industries continued to discard more toxic compounds into the Ohio River watershed than any other in the nation, more than 41 million pounds. So much nastiness flows into the Ohio that, in 2019, algal blooms grew along 265 miles of the river, quite a feat for a body of moving water.
The Ohio is rather young by geological standards, formed between 2.5 and 3 million years ago when the Laurentide Ice Sheet blocked the ancient Teays River. The dam forced waters, previously flowing northward, to find a channel to the west. This time frame is a blink in Earth’s history, but it is long enough to make the Ohio the sixth-oldest river in North America.
In several hundred years, we’ve managed to take a massive waterway that had flowed immaculately for millions of years and turn it into a receptacle for mercury and nitrates.
Thankfully, we have the power to change things. Grassroots, regional, and federal organizations, such as the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission and the Healthy Waters Coalition, work to clean the Ohio and prevent future pollution. A rare bipartisan proposal from late 2025 – the Ohio River Restoration Program Act – would legislate protection.
Can we come together to pass the idea, to keep the Great River great? For future generations, let’s hope the answer is yes.
Further Reading and Exploration
GOOD RIVER: STORIES OF THE OHIO – Official Website
The Ohio River – National Park Service
Healthy Waters Coalition – For a working Ohio River Basin – Official Website
Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission – Official Website
Ohio River Foundation – Official Website
