Southern Ohio, in the minds of many Americans, was part of a larger "Promised Land," whose settlement followed quickly on the heels of the United States' victory over the alliance of Indian nations at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The Treaty of Ft. Greenville ceded Shawnee, Miami, and other Indian land claims to two-thirds of the future state of Ohio and officially opened the pioneer era of the Scioto Valley. From the campaigns of Dunmore's War in 1774 through those of the Northwest…

Explore the hidden history of the Underground Railroad in Portsmouth, Ohio. Located at the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers, and serving as a gateway to the Virginia Military Tract (lands reserved by Congress for Revolutionary War veterans from Virginia), Portsmouth emerged as the largest American settlement between Gallipolis and Cincinnati. With white settlers from Pennsylvania and New England, mixed with white and black settlers from Kentucky and Virginia, Portsmouth developed a Black…

Covering the years 1730 through the War of 1812, this tour explores the history of Native American efforts to defend their homeland, first, from the encroachments of the French and English colonial empires, and, second, from those of the new American Republic. This is the story of the conquest of the Scioto Valley and the larger region of the Trans-Appalachian West, what is sometimes called the "First West." From Celeron’s Expedition in 1749 to Tecumseh in the War of 1812, the Shawnee and…

Explore Portsmouth, Ohio's sports history by visiting the birthplace of the NFL Detroit Lions and the baseball diamond where future Major League Baseball Hall of Famers once competed. Learn about Simon Labold, a local businessman and philanthropist, whose 1925 donation of lands in the city's East End paved the way for the development of a youth and professional athletic complex that hosted some of the nation's greatest football and baseball players. Visit the site where Jim Thorpe led the…

Explore the history depicted in Portsmouth’s famous floodwall murals. This tour covers some 2,000 years of history at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers, from the ancient Adena and Hopewell to the workers at Williams Shoe factory in downtown Portsmouth. Explore in more detail some of the history depicted in Robert Dafford’s epic Portsmouth Floodwall Murals. The history of human settlement at the Mouth of the Scioto has always been shaped by the rise and fall of flood waters. Over…