The Ohio was a primary route for early settlers of the frontier, who floated flatboats down the river into the wilderness along the southern edge of the
Northwest Territory. Later it became a shipping corridor for barges loaded with coal from the mines of westeyn
Pennsylvania and
West Virginia. Major Population centers along the Ohio are
Pittsburgh,
Wheeling, Portsmouth and Maysville Ohio, the
Cincinnati/Northern
Kentucky area,
Louisville, and Cairo,
Illinois.
Due to the 23 dams along its length, the Ohio River is actually better described as a series of lakes which occasionally spill into each other.