The Ohio River is a 981-mile-long (1,579 km) river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois. 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, which divides the eastern from western United States. It is also the sixth oldest river on the North American continent. The river flows through or along the border of six states, and its drainage basin includes parts of 14 states. Through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes several states of the southeastern U.S. It is the source of drinking water for five million people.
Clarksville is a town in Clark County, Indiana, United States, along the Ohio River and is a part of the Louisville Metropolitan area. The population was 22,333 at the 2020 census. The town was founded in 1783 by early resident George Rogers Clark at the only seasonal rapids on the entire Ohio River, it is the oldest American town in the former Northwest Territory. The town is home to the Colgate clock, one of the largest clocks in the world and the Falls of the Ohio State Park, home to the world's largest exposed Devonian period fossil bed.
A pusher, pusher craft, pusher boat, pusher tug, or towboat, is a boat designed for pushing barges or car floats. In the United States, the industries that use these vessels refer to them as towboats. These vessels are characterized by a square bow, a shallow draft, and typically have knees, which are large plates mounted to the bow for pushing barges of various heights. These boats usually operate on rivers and inland waterways. Multiple barges lashed together, or a boat and any barges lashed to it, are referred to as a "tow" and can have dozens of barges. Many of these vessels, especially the long distance, or long haul boats, include living quarters for the crew.
Portland is a historic district, neighborhood and former independent town northwest of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It is situated along a bend of the Ohio River just below the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area, where the river curves to the north and then to the south, thus placing Portland at the northern tip of urban Louisville. In its early days it was the largest of the six major settlements at the falls, the others being Shippingport and Louisville in Kentucky and New Albany, Clarksville, and Jeffersonville on the Indiana side. Its modern boundaries are the Ohio River along the northwest, north, and northeast, 10th Street at the far east, Market Street on the south, and the Shawnee Golf Course at the far west.
The McAlpine Locks and Dam are a set of locks and a hydroelectric dam at the Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. They are located at mile point 606.8, and control a 72.9 miles (117.3 km) long navigation pool. The locks and their associated canal were the first major engineering project on the Ohio River, completed in 1830 as the Louisville and Portland Canal, designed to allow shipping traffic to navigate through the Falls of the Ohio.
Falls of the Ohio State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Indiana. It is located on the banks of the Ohio River at Clarksville, Indiana, across from Louisville, Kentucky. The park is part of the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area. The exposed fossil beds of the Jeffersonville Limestone dated from the Devonian period are the main feature of the park, attracting about 160,000 visitors annually. The Falls was the site where Lewis and Clark met for the Lewis and Clark Expedition at George Rogers Clark's cabin.
The Big Four Bridge is a six-span truss bridge that crosses the Ohio River, connecting Louisville, Kentucky, and Jeffersonville, Indiana. It was completed in 1895, updated in 1929, taken out of rail service in 1968, and converted to bicycle and pedestrian use in 2013. The largest single span is 547 feet (167 m); the entire bridge spans 2,525 feet (770 m). It took its name from the defunct Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, which was nicknamed the "Big Four Railroad".
The Markland Locks and Dam is a concrete dam bridge and locks that span the Ohio River. It is 1395 feet long, and connects Gallatin County, Kentucky, and Switzerland County, Indiana.
Thomas Jefferson Cram was an American topographical engineer from New Hampshire who served in the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers from 1839 to 1863 and the United States Army Corps of Engineers from 1863 to 1869.
The Fourteenth Street Bridge, also known as the Ohio Falls Bridge, Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge, Conrail Railroad Bridge or Louisville and Indiana (L&I) Bridge, is a truss drawbridge that spans the Ohio River, between Louisville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Indiana.
The Kentucky & Indiana Bridge is one of the first multi modal bridges to cross the Ohio River. It is for both railway and common roadway purposes together. Federal, state, and local law state that railway, streetcar, wagon-way, and pedestrian modes of travel were intended by the cites of New Albany and Louisville, the states of Kentucky and Indiana, the United States Congress, and the bridge owners. The K&I Bridge connects Louisville, Kentucky, to New Albany, Indiana. Constructed from 1881 to 1885 by the Kentucky and Indiana Bridge Company, the original K&I Bridge opened in 1886. It included a single standard gauge track and two wagon ways, allowing wagons and other animal powered vehicles to cross the Ohio River by a method other than ferry for the first time. At that time, motorized vehicles were virtually nonexistent. The K&I Bridge company also owned a ferry boat operation during both the first and second bridge; eventually that operation was sold as the bridge's success largely outmoded boat usage.
Louisville in the American Civil War was a major stronghold of Union forces, which kept Kentucky firmly in the Union. It was the center of planning, supplies, recruiting and transportation for numerous campaigns, especially in the Western Theater. By the end of the war, Louisville had not been attacked once, although skirmishes and battles, including the battles of Perryville and Corydon, Indiana, took place nearby.
The Louisville and Portland Canal was a 2-mile (3.2 km) canal bypassing the Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. The Falls form the only barrier to navigation between the origin of the Ohio at Pittsburgh and the port of New Orleans near the Gulf of Mexico; circumventing them was long a goal for Pennsylvanian and Cincinnatian merchants. The canal opened in 1830 as the private Louisville and Portland Canal Company but was gradually bought out during the 19th century by the federal government, which had invested heavily in its construction, maintenance, and improvement.
The Indiana Canal Company was a corporation first established in 1805 for the purpose of building a canal around the Falls of the Ohio on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. After several attempts, and possible sabotage by a supporter of the Louisville and Portland Canal, the project was ended.
Ohio Falls Station is a hydroelectric power station owned by Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities (KU) which is located three miles west of Downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The generating station is located on Shippingport Island at the site of the McAlpine Dam and locks along the Ohio River in Kentucky. The plant was built in 1923 by Byllesby Engineering and Management Corporation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The plant featured eight 10.4 MW units operating at roughly 13,500 hp per unit. Each unit was composed of Allis-Chalmers turbines and General Electric generators. The plant is located inside the Ohio Natural Wildlife Conservation Area and is considered a large impoundment hydro power plant. The station was built after a canal and dam within the Ohio river in an attempt to allow boats to navigate the 8 ft vertical drop among the falls that spanned 2 miles wide. Production of the canal and dam began in 1825. It was not until a repair on the dam was needed that Louisville engineers had the idea of building a hydroelectric station to harvest the power of the falls.
The Devonian Jeffersonville Limestone is a mapped bedrock unit in Indiana and Kentucky. It is highly fossiliferous. The Vernon Fork Member contains Volcanic ash associated with the Tioga Bentonites.
The Grand Rapids Dam was a dam located on the Wabash River on the state line between Wabash County and Knox County in the U.S. states of Illinois and Indiana. The dam was built in the late 1890s by the Army Corps of Engineers to improve navigation on the Wabash River. The dam was located near Mount Carmel, Illinois.
