Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”
The Seneca call it the Ohi:yó, the Good River, and the Shawnee the pelewa thiipi. The early French explorers called it La Belle Rivière, The Beautiful River. Prior to shipping out to France in 1918, my grandfather did his basic training in the army at Camp Taylor in Louisville. Seeing the Ohio River for the first time, he referred to it as “Big Waters” in a letter home. It must have been quite a sight for him since White Creek was probably the biggest waters he had ever seen.
As big waters go, the Ohio River dominates the geography of southern Indiana. Stretching along Indiana’s southern border, the river has long controlled the rhythm of life along its banks. The history of our nation is intertwined with the river, with historical figures like Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, and countless others etching their names in its currents. But the river is more than just the people or the events that have been swept up in the flow of history. Long before there were towns and people, the river carved its place in the geological history of the states of the Ohio River Valley. These ancient events shaped the land and the people who came thousands of years later.
The Ohio River begins its journey at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers at Pittsburgh. As it meanders westward, it passes by bustling cities like Cincinnati and Louisville and quiet river towns such as Rising Sun and Metropolis before ending its journey at Cairo. Before the river was dammed to allow for boat traffic, it was a relatively shallow with depths of 3 to 20 feet. In some places, one could even walk across the river.
The geologic history of the Ohio is tied up in the pre-historic Teays River and multiple glacial periods that occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch. Prior to the formation of the river we know today, much of the east-central United States was drained by the ancient Teays River system. Originating over 2 million years ago in the Tertiary Period in what is now North Carolina, it flowed north through present-day Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio before turning westward continuing on through northern Indiana and Illinois. It eventually drained into an embayment of the Gulf of Mexico now occupied by the Mississippi River. Much of the Teays River Valley, up to two miles wide in places, is now buried under glacial sediment of as much as 500 feet.
One of the earliest glacial periods of the Pleistocene dammed the northward flow of the Teays and created a vast lake rising to an elevation of nearly 900 feet and covering an estimated 7,000 square miles in southern Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. Eventually, the water of this lake breached its drainage divides and created new drainage patterns. This breach marked the birth of the modern Ohio River drainage system. This cycle of damming and overflowing continued during subsequent glacial periods that pressed further south. Most notably, the Wisconsin Glacier gradually changed the river’s path to what we see today.
When I reflect on the geologic processes that have taken place through the millennia, I am humbled by my insignificance. The Ice Age is one of those periods in geologic history that fascinates me due to its enormity. With temperatures too cold for the snow to melt off, the accumulation eventually created the glaciers that slowly pushed into the Ohio Valley. I can imagine staring at a wall of ice over one mile high with constant winds and a landscape as desolate as the dark side of the moon. One can be sure that any living thing would have had a rough time of it, which makes me think that a repeat would not go well for humankind.
The Ohio, although beautiful along many of its more rural stretches, is very different from the one of history. Drastically changed since the construction of the lock and dam systems, there is very little that looks like the river on which the Shawnee and Seneca paddled just a few hundred years ago. Humans have made our mark on the river, some good and some bad, but be assured the Ohi:yó will continue on, following its own rhythm and not ours.
Note: I used the following sources in preparing The Ohi:yó. Both are excellent resources if you want to learn more about the geological history of our region.
The Teays River, GeoFacts No. 10, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey, November 1995.
Fleming, Anthony. Ice Age in Indiana, Indiana Geological & Water Survey. You can access this paper at https://igws.indiana.edu/Surficial/IceAge