Ohio River

===Precolumbian===
[[File:Steamboat "Morning Star", 1858.jpg|thumb|Steamboat ''Morning Star'', a Louisville and Evansville mail packet, in 1858]]
The river had great significance in the history of the [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], as numerous prehistoric and historic civilizations formed along its valley.<ref>{{cite web |url = https://www.britannica.com/place/Ohio-River |title = Ohio River {{!}} river, United States |website = Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date = February 2, 2019 |archive-date = February 3, 2019 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190203032157/https://www.britannica.com/place/Ohio-River |url-status = live}}</ref> For thousands of years, Native Americans used the river as a major transportation and trading route.<ref name=ref01>{{cite book |last=McNeese |first=Tim |title=The Ohio River |publisher=Chelsea House Publishing|date = 2004|isbn = 9780791077252}}</ref>

In the five centuries before European colonization, the [[Mississippian culture]] built numerous regional [[chiefdom]]s and major [[Earthworks (archaeology)|earthwork mounds]] in the Ohio Valley like the [[Angel Mounds]] near [[Evansville, Indiana]] as well as in the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi Valley]] and the Southeast. The historic [[Osage Nation|Osage]], [[Omaha people|Omaha]], [[Ponca]], and [[Kaw (tribe)|Kaw]] peoples lived in the Ohio Valley. Under pressure over the fur trade from the [[Iroquois]] nations to the northeast, they migrated west of the Mississippi River in the 17th century to the territory now defined as [[Missouri]], [[Arkansas]], and [[Oklahoma]].