Falls of the Ohio State Park

Arriving at Indiana’s Falls of the Ohio State Park prompts an immediate question: Where’s the waterfall? There is no thundering cascade here, but this Indiana spot just across from Louisville, Kentucky, holds stories about Indigenous cultures, important figures in American history and creatures from 390 million years ago.

The Falls of the Ohio encompasses a 2.5-mile stretch of the river that drops 26 feet over jagged limestone ledges. The site was important to Indigenous societies for farming and fishing and to settlers and explorers pushing west. Before water from modern dams covered the falls as they naturally existed, traversing them was serious business. Some historians say Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their Louisiana Purchase expedition here. It is said they rendezvoused at the falls in 1803 before assembling their full crew near St. Louis, which explains the park’s landmark statue of the intrepid explorers. 

The river’s rocky bottom here is one of the world’s largest Devonian fossil beds, with scientists having identified 600 different species. When alive, these fossilized animals and plants inhabited a tropical sea that sat south of the equator. Videos in the park’s elaborate interpretive center feature geologist William Andrews and explain the Earth’s amazing metamorphosis.

Poet Walt Whitman and author Mark Twain both wrote about the Falls of the Ohio, and naturalist John James Audubon made more than 200 sketches of 14 bird species here. What appealed to Whitman, Twain, Audubon and scientists continues to intrigue visitors today. Park activities include examining fossil beds (look, but don’t take), hiking the woodland trail and scouting for chattering birds. 201 W. Riverside Dr., Clarksville, Indiana 47129, 812/280-9970, in.gov/dnr