The RiverView Bed and Breakfast Inn is a modern, California-style home with an elevated wrap-around deck located on four beautiful acres neighboring Holiday Point Marina on the Ohio River in Franklin Furnace, Ohio.  It is decorated with one-of-a-kind hand pieced quilts, creating a relaxed, intimate atmosphere.  The views are outstanding!   Click Here for other B&B's featured by OPT.

Smith's Pleasant Valley Amish Country & Mohican Country right at your finger tips.  Are you planning your fall & winter getaways?  Camping and Cabins are available YEAR ROUND!  Spend a relaxing weekend in one of our full service cabins or "rough" it by bringing your tent or camper to our campground.  We have 50* 30* 20 amp underground electrical service on or off river!  Or plan a day trip and rent a canoe, kayak, or tube.  We have new trips for the 2002 season! Canoeing is available until October 31st.

State of Ohio Rivers

The RiverView Bed and Breakfast Inn is a modern, California-style home with an elevated wrap-around deck located on four beautiful acres neighboring Holiday Point Marina on the Ohio River in Franklin Furnace, Ohio.  It is decorated with one-of-a-kind hand pieced quilts, creating a relaxed, intimate atmosphere.  The views are outstanding!   Click Here for other B&B's featured by OPT.

The Ohio River is 1580 km (981 mi) long. It starts in Pennsylvania and borders the states of Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.

I. Introduction

Ohio River, Algonquian for "beautiful river", is in the east central United States. It flows from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois, a distance of 1,580 km. (981 mi.). The Ohio drains 525,800 sq. km. (203,000 sq. mi.) and has an average annual flow of 7960 cu. m. per second (281,000 cu. ft. per second), providing slightly less than half of the discharge of the Mississippi River.

II. Description

The Ohio is formed by the junction, at Pittsburgh, of two substantial rivers: the Monongahela River and the Allegheny River. It winds generally southwest in a narrow valley, bordering on Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois on the north, and West Virginia and Kentucky on the south. The Ohio is generally 300 to 500 m. (1000 to 1600 ft.) wide, and from 3 to 6 m. (10 to 20 ft.) deep. In addition to the Monongahela and Allegheny, the Ohio's main tributaries include the Kanawha, Scioto, Miami, Wabash, Kentucky, Cumberland, and Tennessee rivers. Most of the Ohio is geologically young, having been formed when preexisting rivers were diverted by glaciers during the Pleistocene Epoch, which ended about 10,000 years ago. The Ohio's valley is quite narrow, and steep bluffs line the river for most of its length, making the valley especially scenic.

III. Economic Importance

The Ohio River is navigable throughout its length. A channel 2.7 m. (9 ft.) deep, maintained along the river's entire course, and a series of 13 dams with locks ensures passage of commercial and other vessels. The largest cities along the Ohio's banks are Pittsburgh; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Louisville, Kentucky. All three of the cities grew in the 1800s, largely through use of the river as a transportation route. Today the Ohio remains an important commercial artery, but little shipping is done in and out of these cities. Most shipping today is of bulk products, primarily coal, which is mined in all of the states bordering the Ohio, loaded onto barges near the mines, and carried to electricity-generating plants along the river. Gravel and petroleum products are also transported. The Ohio carried 215 million metric tons of cargo in 1994. The river also is important for recreational activities such as motorboating and riverboat-based gambling. The banks of the Ohio support a rich hardwood forest, and the river contains numerous fish, including catfish, carp, and buffalofish. The habitat of the river has been modified substantially by navigation works, flood-control walls and levees, and pollution. Industrial and municipal pollution sources along the Ohio and its tributaries contribute a wide range of contaminants. Communities along the river use the river for drinking water as well as waste disposal, and pollution levels have been a common concern throughout the valley since the early 20th century. In 1948 the Ohio River Sanitation Compact (ORSANCO) was formed to foster cooperation among the states and communities of the valley. The efforts of ORSANCO, together with federal controls on water pollution enacted in the 1960s and 1970s, have significantly reduced industrial and municipal pollution.

IV. History

Native Americans have occupied the Ohio Valley for about 15,000 years, traveling and trading on the river and its tributaries. About 2000 years ago a people now known as the Hopewell developed an elaborate culture and extensive trading networks; their most prominent archaeological remains are burial mounds found throughout the region. In the 1700s the Ohio Valley was home to the Shawnee, Miami, Omaha, Erie, and Susquehannock. French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, visited the river in 1669; he was probably the first European to do so. In 1778 American military leader George Rogers Clark led an expedition down the Ohio, gaining control of several British settlements in present-day Indiana and Illinois. Settlement of the valley proceeded rapidly in the early 1800s, and by the 1820s the Ohio was a major transportation route to the West, followed by migrants to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and points west. River traffic grew rapidly but diminished in the late 1800s as railroads replaced the river as the primary means of transporting general cargo. The river has seen several large floods, including those in 1847, 1884, 1913, and 1937, the last being the largest flood ever recorded along much of the river. Since 1937 the number of flood-control reservoirs, flood walls, and levees throughout the basin has grown, and flood hazards have been reduced.