Great Miami River

Great Miami River
Great Miami River
	The Great Miami River near Vandalia
Location
Country	United States
State	Ohio, Indiana
Counties	Logan, Shelby, Miami, Montgomery, Warren, Butler, Hamilton in Ohio; Dearborn in Indiana
Physical characteristics
Source
• location	Indian Lake, Russells Point, Logan County, Ohio
• coordinates	40°28′04″N 83°52′33″W / 40.46778°N 83.87583°W
• elevation	998 ft (304 m)
Mouth
• location	Ohio River, Miami Township, Hamilton County, Ohio
• coordinates	39°06′31″N 84°48′52″W / 39.10861°N 84.81444°W
• elevation	449 feet (137 m)
Length	170 miles (270 km)
Basin size	5,373 sq mi (13,920 km2)
Discharge
• average	5,368 cu ft/s (152.0 m3/s)

The Great Miami River (also called the Miami River) (Shawnee: Msimiyamithiipi^[2]) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 160 miles (260 km) long,^[3] in southwestern Ohio and Indiana in the United States. The Great Miami originates at the man-made Indian Lake and flows south through the cities of Sidney, Piqua, Troy, Dayton, Middletown and Hamilton.

The river is named for the

Miami, an Algonquian-speaking Native American people who lived in the region during the early days of European settlement.^[4]

They were forced to relocate to the west to escape pressure from European-American settlers.

The region surrounding the Great Miami River is known as the

Greater Dayton area. As the lower portions of the Miami Valley fall under the influence of Cincinnati

and the Ohio River Valley, residents of the lower area do not identify with the Miami in the same way.

Course

The main course of the Great Miami River rises from the outflow of

Wolf Creek.^[1]

From Dayton it flows southwest past

Cincinnati. The river meanders across the state line near Lawrenceburg, Indiana

in the last two miles (3 km) before reaching its mouth approximately ¼ mile east of the border in Ohio.

The border of Ohio and Indiana was based on where the confluence of the Ohio and Great Miami Rivers was in 1800.^[5]

Natural and human history

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In the 1700s, the French called the river Riviere à la Roche ("River of the Rocks").

Miami Nation that lived in the area (ahseni siipiiwi, meaning Rock River^[7]

).

The

Cincinnati to Middletown, was operational in 1828, and extended to Dayton in 1830.^[8] Water from the Great Miami fed into the canal.^[9] A later extension to the canal, the Sidney Feeder, drew water from the upper reaches of the Great Miami from near Port Jefferson and Sidney

. The canal served as the principal north–south route of transportation from Toledo to Cincinnati for western Ohio until being supplanted in the 1850s by railroads.

As was common in early industrial days, beginning in the 19th century the river served as a source of water and a method to dispose of wastes for a variety of major industrial firms, including

Champion International Paper, Black Clawson, Fernald

and many others. Heightened attention to water pollution in the late 1950s and 1960s has led to significant improvements in waste disposal and water quality.

Following a catastrophic

dredge

and straighten channels to control flooding of the river.