FRONTIERS, FLATBOATS, RYE WHISKEY AND KING COAL
The Monongahela River formed some 20 million years ago. Because of a series of 9 Locks and Dams, the Mon today is deep enough for tow boats with barges to navigate. The dams maintain at least a 9-foot channel for boats. In its natural state, though, the river was much more shallow.
In fact, when the first pioneers saw the Mon, they may have been able to walk across it. Native Americans occupied the lands of the Monongahela from about 8000 B.C. to about 1700 A.D. Shawnee, Mingo, and other tribes claimed and used the region as a hunting ground. The Native Americans named the river Monongahela, which is said to mean "river with crumbling or falling banks."
Indian traders and pioneers from colonial settlements came to the Upper Mon as early as 1694, when a small temporary settlement was made near present-day Rivesville. Hostile tribes destroyed attempts at permanent settlements, such as those at Dunkard's Creek (1757) and Decker's Creek (1758). The first permanent settlements came shortly after the close of the French and Indian War (1763), but forts were still necessary for protection. Pricketts Fort, just north of Rivesville and accessible from the Mon, is a reconstruction of such a fort.
Navigation on the river began with canoes and bateaux, but as settlements along the Mon grew, pioneers needed a means to send goods down-river to Pittsburgh and ports in the south. At first, they built flatboats, which could only go down river. Later, keelboats were built. These vessels traveled both down and up river. Old Monongahela Rye Whiskey was one of the area's principal early agricultural products exported by way of the Mon using flatboats and keelboats. In 1811, the steamboat New Orleans was launched on the Mon at Pittsburgh, and made the first trip to New Orleans.
In the 1840's, locks were built on the Lower Mon in Pennsylvania, and by 1904 the Corps of Engineers completed five additional locks and dams in West Virginia, making the Mon the first American river slack-watered its complete length. Remnants of early locks can be seen at various locations.
Throughout the years, tow boats have transported coal barges filled with millions of tons of cargo for the steel mills in Pittsburgh, power plants along the Ohio River, and on to New Orleans for international distribution. The imprint of King Coal has been left with acid-mine drainage that has flowed from mines for years. Cultural aspects of mining are evident. Active and abandoned coal loading docks may be seen from the river. Since implementation of the Clean Water Act in 1972, the waters of the Mon have become cleaner, with communities focusing their gateway development to include riverfront parks.