Ohio River

• Allegheny probably comes from Lenape words "welhik hane" or "oolikhanna", which means 'best flowing river of the hills' or 'beautiful stream'. There is a Lenape legend of a tribe called "Allegewi" who used to live along the river.

• The Allegheny River begins near the middle of the state of Pennsylvania just south of the border with New York State at a spot known as Ohio River Headwaters and Hydrological Headwaters of the Mississippi River -- about 10 miles south of Genesee, Pennsylvania. It flows northwesterly into New York before returning to Pennsylvania before spilling over the Kinzua Dam and flowing to Pittsburgh. The Lenni Lenape and Iroquois Indians considered the Allegheny and Ohio rivers as the same, as is suggested by a New York State road sign on Interstate 86 that refers to the Allegheny River also as Ohiːyo'.

• The Allegheny River Basin occupies 11,747 square miles in the states of New York and Pennsylvania. The Allegheny River is over 325 miles long and contributes 60% of the Ohio River flow at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the location of the most populous freshwater mussel habitat in the world, and one tributary, French Creek (which flows into the Allegheny River at Franklin), is one of the most biologically diverse watersheds in Pennsylvania.

• The Allegheny flows through areas of narrow forest valleys, wilderness islands and broad, rural landscapes rich with the early history and culture of the region. Pastoral farmlands, small towns and the narrow winding valleys provide a diversity of views for those travelling the river. Good public access and few hazards make this an ideal river for novice and family canoeing. Fishing for muskie, walleye, rainbow trout and smallmouth bass is popular.

• In Unami the word Monongahela means "falling banks", referring to the geological instability of the river's banks. Moravian missionary David Zeisberger (1721–1808) gave this account of the naming: "In the Indian tongue the name of this river was Mechmenawungihilla (alternatively spelled Menawngihella), which signifies a high bank, which is ever washed out and therefore collapses." In the Lenape language the word is Mënaonkihëla (pronounced [mənaoŋɡihəla]), translated "where banks cave in or erode".

• More than 780,000 years ago, the ancestral Monongahela River (also known as the Pittsburgh River) flowed northward from present-day north-central West Virginia, across western Pennsylvania and northwestern Ohio, and into the Saint Lawrence River watershed. One (or more) extensive ice sheet advance dammed the old north-flowing drainage and created a vast lake known as Lake Monongahela stretching from an unknown point north of present-day Beaver, Pennsylvania for approximately 200 miles south to Weston, West Virginia. A river-lake with many narrow bays, its maximum water surface rose to 1,100 feet above sea level. Over 200 feet deep in places, its southwestward overflow gradually incised old drainage divides and contributed to the geological development of the present-day upper Ohio River Valley.

• The Monongahela River is formed by the Tygart Valley River and the West Fork River about 10 miles south of Fairmont, West Virginia. It flows in a northeasterly direction through Morgantown to Point Marion, Pennsylvania. From here the flow is mostly northerly until near Kennywood Park where the direction becomes northwesterly until Pittsburgh.

• The river's length is 130 miles, its drainage basin is 7,340 square miles. It falls 3,831 ft. in elevation from its forks to its mouth on the Ohio River.

• The name "Ohio" comes from the Seneca language (an Iroquoian language), Ohi:yo' (roughly pronounced oh-hee-yoh, with the vowel in "hee" held longer), a proper name derived from ohiːyoːh ("good river"), therefore literally translating to "Good River". One of the first Europeans to see the Ohio River was Frenchman Rene Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle in 1669. He named the river "la belle riviere" or "the beautiful river."

• The 981 mile long Ohio River is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from Pittsburgh to the mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois at Cairo. 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 that divides the eastern from western United States. The river flows through or along the border of six states, and its drainage basin includes parts of 14 states.

• The river is sometimes considered as the western extension of the Mason–Dixon Line that divided Pennsylvania from Maryland, and thus part of the border between free and slave territory, and between the Northern and Southern United States or Upper South.

• The Ohio River is a naturally shallow river that was artificially deepened by a series of dams. The natural depth of the river varied from about 3 to 20 feet. The dams raise the water level and have turned the river largely into a series of reservoirs, eliminating shallow stretches and allowing for commercial navigation. From its origin in Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, the average depth is approximately 15 feet. The river's deepest point is 168 feet on the western side of Louisville, Kentucky. From Louisville, the river loses depth very gradually until its confluence with the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois, where it has an approximate depth of 19 feet.

• Sorry to say that the mythological 4th river is not a river at all -- it is an aquifer -- an underground deposit of water coursing through layers of sediment, sand, rock and glacier that is believed to be between 30 to 85 feet thick. It rests beneath the riverbed upon which the Golden Triangle, parts of Downtown and the North Shore sit.

• The aquifer was created by powerful geologic forces around the same time the Great Lakes came into existence — some 12,000 to 100,000 years ago. Humans did not inhabit this part of the continent when the aquifer was formed.

• In past years, the fountain at the Point has used as much as 6,000 gallons per hour from the aquifer to create a spray 200 feet high. Today, the water is from Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority (PWSA).

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